Her eyes flashed, then became quiet again. “No. I’ve seen too much of hate, and death. I lost..... I lost everything.”
And suddenly it came to her. She was standing and talking with a man, her own flesh, who had been on the other side of the firing, and might well have given the order to kill---
Her face went pale as an intolerable pain rose in the hollow of her chest, and the full horror of war loomed before her. She stepped back, senses failing, and would have fallen if he had not rushed forward and caught her up.
Horrified at his own actions, which could have caused in her such pain, he carried her back to a flat stone before the hut, which served as a bench. She sat woozily for a moment, not knowing where she was, until she became aware of his voice, and of his strong arm about her shoulders, supporting her.
“Mary, it’s all right,” he said. “Please, please forgive me. We won’t speak of it again.” And looking up at his troubled countenance, so full of concern and self-reproach, she could not help but forgive him.
He continued, hardly knowing what he said, trying to mend the breach that he had caused between them. “I, too, know what it is to lose: my mother, when I was very young.” And in that moment it did not seem strange to him to speak of this, his greatest secret and vulnerability, which he hid so tenaciously from others.
“Stephen.” She spoke plainly, though she was not sure herself what she felt, sitting there so close beside him. “You came in the hope of becoming in some way intimate with me. That has already happened; I ask you to think of me as your friend. And as a friend, I have something to ask of you.”
“You know that I would do anything.” And he colored to hear himself speak.
“Thank you for saying that just now.” She laid her hand lightly on his, feeling the shiver it caused in him. Half against her will she left it there, and felt his grateful fingers close around hers. “Would you take me riding today?” she asked. “Without expecting anything in return? More than anything right now I want to go somewhere wide open and free, where I can think, and feel alive. I need someone I can be alone, with. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”