"Let me see your hand," he said.
"It doesn't matter--now." He smiled nervously. Then: "Do they know I'm here?"
"No," answered Roman. "They must never know."
"Never." Another pause: the candle scorched his raw wound, and he muttered something.
"How did you know?" he asked Roman.
"Never mind how." He went near his brother, much reproach in his voice. "Oh, why did you do it, Joe? What in the world induced you to put on this?" He tugged angrily at the Prussian uniform.
"Because there, in Germany, we were a herd ... and I little thought what this war was going to be." Then he turned to the priest, lowering his voice. "And I know, too, in the bottom of my heart, that I went with the herd because it seemed better to die fighting than to be shot for not going on. Oh, the misery of it all!"
"My child, God is merciful."
"I have explained what I could, as clearly as I can, here," he went on, more quietly. "To Vanda."
"But explain it now, to me," his brother insisted.