This was an elder
brother, a grave elder brother, chastened by suffering.
The woman closed the scene. "I am prepared to go with you," she told
him. "I shall wait here till the canoes are ready. Will you leave me
with my husband?"
She had never before said "husband" in my hearing. As soon as the door
clicked behind Starling I went to her. I knelt and laid my cheek on
her hand.
"You are going to stay with me, Mary. You are my wife. You cannot
escape that. It is fundamental. Patriotism is a man-made feeling.
You are going to stay with me. I am going now to tell Cadillac."
But I could feel her tremble. "If you say more, I must leave you. You
cannot alter my mind. What has come must come. Can we not sit
together in silence till I go?"
And so I sat beside her. "You are a strange woman," I said at length.
She looked at me as if to plead her own cause. "Strange events have
made me. I cannot marvel if you are bitter, for I have brought you
unhappiness. Yet it was in this room that I asked you to remember that
I went with you against my will."
"I remember."
"And will you remember what--what I have seen? Is it strange that I
understand; that I know we must part?"
I shook my head.
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