I leaned over him. "Where? Where is she? Where?"
He tried many times before he made a sound that I could catch, and his strength ebbed. I tried more brandy, but he was past reviving. I strained to hear, till my agony matched his. I thought I caught a word. "Woods!" I cried. "Is she in the woods?"
"Yes." He suddenly spoke clearly. "Go." And he fell back in my arms.
I thought that he died with that word, but I held him a moment longer to make sure. It did not matter now that I hated him. As to what he had brought on me,—I could not visit my despair on him for that. As well rage at the forces that made him. Life had given him a little soul in a compelling body. The world believed the body, and expected of the man what he could not reach. I looked at his dead face and trembled before the mystery of inheritance.
But he was not dead. He opened his eyes to mine, quivered, and spoke, and his voice was clear.
"I would have followed her into the woods but they bound me. I was not a coward that time. I would have followed her."
And then the end came to him in a way that I could not mistake, for with the last struggle he cried to the woman.
I laid him down. While I had held him I had known that Frenchmen were fighting around me, and my neck was slimy with warm blood, for an arrow had nicked my ear. But the battle had swayed on to the north of the camp, and only dead and dying were left in sight. I looked at Starling. I could not carry him. I took off my coat, covered the body, and went on.
The woman had gone to the woods. She had gone to the woods.
But woods lay on every side.