She had been sleeping badly of late, but that night she hardly sleeps at all. Towards the grey dawning she has a sense of Robbie being in the room with her. He is wearing his officer’s uniform, just as in her mind’s eye, when she felt so proud, she had often seen him. She knows he is dead, and she thinks this is his spirit, and it has come to reproach her.
“Mona, if anybody had told me three years ago that such a thing would happen I should have killed him. Yes, by God, I should have killed him.”
Mona tries to speak, but cannot.
“Rob....”
“Lord, how proud I was of you! When they told me I had won the Victoria Cross I laughed and said, ‘My sister would have won it long ago if she had been here.’ Nobody hated the Germans as you used to do, but now that you’ve given yourself to one of them....”
“Rob ... Rob....”
“What else could you have done it for? Everybody believes it, too. Father believed it, and it was that that killed him.”
Again Mona tries to cry out and cannot.
“Hide yourself away, Mona. Hide your sin and shame in some miserable corner of the earth where nobody will know you. You’ve broken my heart, and now....”
“Robbie! Robbie!”