There was an unsteady movement of Hugo’s body on his crutches.  He swallowed hard, moistening dry lips; and the mobility of feature that could change the mask into the illumination of varied emotions spoke horror and asked for pity.

“I—­I—­as a matter of mercy, when I have admitted the charge, I ask you not to bear on that, sir!” he stammered.  Then the crutches creaked with a stronger grip of his hands and a stiffening of his body as he mastered his feelings.  The mask recovered its own, even to the drawing down of the corner of the mouth.  “I have reasoned that all out, sir,” he went on.  “It was the thing which kept me from throwing down my rifle before we made our first charge.  I have written a letter to my father and mother.”

Marta had been so engrossed in the landscape that she seemed not to have been listening.  It was her voice, come out of the distance, that asked, without any inflection except that of tense curiosity: 

“May we see the letter?”

As she turned her eyes looked directly into Hugo’s, their gaze locked, as it were:  hers that of a simple request, his that of puzzled, unsatisfied scrutiny.

“May we?” she repeated to Westerling, looking now frankly at him, “though I don’t know as it is in keeping with the situation or with your wishes to grant the whim of a woman.  But you see,” she added smiling, “that is what comes of having a woman present.”

If she had any double meaning Westerling could not find it in her eyes.

“I am willing,” said Hugo.  “Indeed, I shall be very glad to have my side heard.”

“Yes, let us see the letter,” assented Westerling; for he, too, was curious.

When Hugo had given it to Westerling and he saw that it was not very long, he began reading aloud: 

“‘I’ve kept very well and cheerful and I’m cheerful now,’” the letter began. “’Please always think of me as cheerful.  Everybody in our company has fought well; just as bravely as our forefathers did in the wars of their day.’”

“Which hardly agrees with your ideas,” observed Westerling.

“Exactly, sir.  Men should be brave for their convictions,” answered Hugo.  “And, as you said, the men of our province are loyal to the old ideas.  They believe they ought to fight the Browns.”

Then followed a brief, intimate, appealing story of how each of his dead comrades had fallen.

“’You can read these to their folks at home, if you want to.  They might like to know.’”

Irresistibly there crept into Westerling’s face at these recitals of soldierly courage the satisfaction of the commander with the spirit of his men.  Here was proof of the valor of the units of his army.

“‘Now I have something to tell you which will hurt you very much,’” Westerling read on, “’but you must recollect that I was always regarded as a little queer.  And I don’t think people will hold you to blame on my account.  I hope they will sympathize with you for having such a son.  You will have heard the story from the men of the company, but I also want to tell it to you....’”