“You do not understand my faith,” she said, “and I cannot explain it. When I read that story in the street I felt as if something had struck me. I tried to push it from me with my hands, and I do not know how I found my way home. I still feel as if I had been hurt and bruised in some way, and yet I know—I feel—that it is not true—that he is—dead.”
Her voice whispered the word, and for a long interval there was silence in the room. Then she said, slowly: “It is a mistake—a horrible mistake. God give us courage to bear the mistake. But that is all it is.”
“You do not believe the story of your husband’s magnificent heroism?”
“I do believe it.”
“Then you must admit that he has passed away. Is it not clearly stated that after he had saved almost the entire division that was caught in the ambush that he himself was struck down and his body carried away by the Russians, for what purposes can only be surmised?”
Mrs. Kurukawa was silent. After a while she arose, and, though her hands were trembling, she dressed herself afresh with calmness. Madame Sano watched her in silence.
After a while she asked:
“You are going out?”
“Yes, to learn what I can. If necessary I will go again to Tokio, leaving the children with you.”
The old woman nodded.