“No. Nothing can be done.”
There was silence for a while; then a sudden thought comes over her.
“Are they weeping for his sake, all those people?”
“Yes.”
“What has he done?”
“The last thing he did was to let big Mons kill him to save women and children from death.”
Again she sits silent for a while and thinks.
“What kind of a face did he have, colonel, when he came home two months ago?”
The colonel started. Now he understands; now at last he understands.