It was well, I thought,
that she would weep and rest and then we would toil on again, for
I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can
see her as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can
mark again the deepening hollow of her cheek.
"'If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go.'
"'No,' said I.' Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent;
I made my choice, and I will hold on to the end.'
"And then--
"Overhead in the sky flashed something and burst, and all
about us I heard the bullets making a noise like a handful of peas
suddenly thrown. They chipped the stones about us, and whirled
fragments from the bricks and passed . . . ."
He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.
"At the flash I had turned about . . .
"You know--she stood up--
"She stood up, you know, and moved a step towards me--as
though she wanted to reach me--
"And she had been shot through the heart."
He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish
incapacity an Englishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes
for a moment, and then stared out of the window. For a long space
we kept silence. When at last I looked at him he was sitting back
in his corner, his arms folded, and his teeth gnawing at his
knuckles.
He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.
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