'Do you know it is twelve o'clock?' he said presently. 'Won't you go to bed? I am afraid you have sat up to keep this fire alight for the food.'
She pushed back the thick hair from her forehead. No one could call her pretty, but the clear eyes and the patience and strength of the young mouth struck one.
'I think I was trying to see the end of the war,' she said, sighing; 'but it takes better sight than mine.'
'You?' he said pityingly. 'Have you lost any one very near—nearer than these cousins?'
She blenched a moment.
'One of them,' she said. 'I had been married to one of them—a week. We will not speak of that.'
He begged her pardon, his throat thick again.
She fought her lip quiet.
'Oh,' she said, 'it is the same everywhere; our lovers, our husbands, our sons—all gone from us! Some will come back, of course, but crushed and mutilated. A little time, and your army will only have a handful of women to contend against.'
'We, too,' he said, 'we have lost our brothers, our fathers, our sons. Everywhere we have women mourning.'