“Yes, Michael, he was afraid.”

“What of?”

“He was most awfully afraid of seeing suffering.”

“Well, so am I. And I’m afraid of suffering myself too.  I’m afraid of the whole blessed thing from beginning to end.”

“That’s because you keep on seeing the whole blessed thing from beginning to end.  Nicky only saw little bits of it.  The bits he liked.  Machine-guns working beautifully, and shells dropping in the right places, and trenches being taken.

“And then, remember—­Nicky hadn’t so much to give up.”

“He had you.”

“Oh, no.  He knew that was the way to keep me.”

“Ronny—­if Nicky had been like me could he have kept you?”

She considered it.

“Yes—­if he could have been himself too.”

“He couldn’t, you see.  He never could have felt like that.”

“I don’t say He could.”

“Well—­the awful thing is ‘feeling like that.’”

“And the magnificent thing is ‘feeling like that,’ and going all the same.  Everybody knows that but you, Michael.”

“Yes,” he said.  “I’m going.  But I’m not going to lie about it and say I don’t funk it.  Because I do.”

“You don’t really.”

“I own I didn’t the first night—­the night I knew Nicky was killed.  Because I couldn’t think of anything else but Nicky.

“It was after I’d written to Mother that it came on.  Because I knew then I couldn’t back out of it.  That’s what I can’t get over—­my having to do that—­to clinch it—­because I was afraid.”

“My dear, my dear, thousands of men do that every day for the same reason, only they don’t find themselves out; and if they did they wouldn’t care.  You’re finding yourself out all the time, and killing yourself with caring.”

“Of course I care.  Can’t you see it proves that I never meant to go at all?”

“It proves that you knew you’d have to go through hell first and you were determined that even hell shouldn’t keep you back.”

“Ronny—­that’s what it has been.  Simply hell.  It’s been inconceivable.  Nothing—­absolutely nothing out there could be as bad.  It went on all yesterday and to-day—­till you came.”

“I know, Michael.  That’s why I came.”

“To get me out of it?”

“To get you out of it.

“It’s all over,” she said.

“It may come back—­out there.”

“It won’t.  Out there you’ll be happy.  I saw Nicky on Sunday—­the minute before he was killed, Michael.  And he was happy.”

“He would be.”  He was silent for a long time.

“Ronny.  Did Nicky know I funked it?”

“Never!  He knew you wouldn’t keep out.  All he minded was your missing any of it.”

She got up and put on her hat.  “I must go.  It’s getting late.  Will you walk up to Morfe with me?  I’m sleeping there.  In the hotel.”

“No, I say—­I’m not going to let you turn out for me. I’ll sleep at the hotel.”