Then I made him listen to me while I expounded that which was familiar to his obstinate mind--namely, the heroic qualities of his own wife.
"It comes to this," said I, by way of peroration, "that you're afraid of Edith letting you down, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself." At that he flared out again.

How dared I, he asked, eating his words, suggest that he did not trust the most splendid woman God had ever made?
Didn't I see that he was only trying to shield her from knowledge that might kill her?
I retorted by pointing out that worry over his insane behaviour--please remember that above our deep unchangeable mutual affection, a violent surface quarrel was raging--would more surely and swiftly kill her than unhappy knowledge.

Her quick brain--had already connected Gedge, Boyce, and his present condition as the main factors of some strange problem.

"Her quick brain!" I cried.
"A half idiot child would have put things together." Presently he collapsed, sitting hopelessly, nervelessly in his chair.
At last he lifted a piteously humble face.
"What would you suggest my doing, Duncan ?" There seemed to me to be only one thing he could do in order to preserve, if not his reason, at any rate his moral equilibrium in the position which he had contrived for himself.

To tell him this had been my object in seeking the interview, and the blessed opportunity only came after an hour's hard wrangle--in current metaphor after an hour's artillery preparation for attack.