But before her steady gaze all the words he had meant to say, all the words of furious protest, died on his lips.
“To me—to me—” he repeated.
Then he was silent.
“Boris,” she said, “I want to give you one thing, the thing that you have lost. I want to give you back peace.”
“You never can.”
“I must try. Even if I cannot I shall know that I have tried.”
“You are giving me—you are giving me not peace, but a sword,” he said.
She understood that he had seen the two tents.
“Sometimes a sword can give peace.”
“The peace of death.”