it
might be, talking for some time.

"And so I'm not surprised, Durward, that you thought me a terrible
fool to show my feelings as I've done this last fortnight. But you
don't know what it is to me--to have something at last in your hands
that you've dreamed of all your life and never dared to hope for: to
have it and feel that at any moment it may slip away and leave you in
a worse state than you were before. I'd been wishing, these last
weeks, that I'd never met her, that I'd simply come to the war by
myself. But now--to-day--when she spoke to me as she did, asked me to
forgive her for what happened last night, my God, Durward! _I_ to
forgive _her_!... But I'll show her this very night what I can
do--this very night! They'll give me a chance, won't they? It would be
terrible if they didn't. Semyonov won't give me a chance if he can
help it. What have I done to Semyonov that he should hate me? What
have...."

But I didn't answer Trenchard. That part of me that had any concern
with him and his affairs was far away. But his voice had stirred some
more active life in me. I thought to myself now: Will there be some
concrete definite moment in this affair when I shall say to myself:
"Ah, there it is! There's the heart of this whole business! There's
the enemy! Slay him and you have settled the matter!" or, perhaps,
"Ah, now I've seen the secret. Now I've hunted the animal to his lair.
This is war, this thing here. Now all my days I remain quiet. There is
nothing more to fear"--or would it be perhaps that I should face
something and be filled, then, with ungovernable terror so that I
should run for my life, run, hide me in the hills, cover up my days so
that no one shall ever find me again?...

I raised myself on my elbow and looked at the country. We jolted over
a little brook, brushed through a thicket of trees, came on to a path
running at the forest's foot, and saw on our left a little wooden
house, a high wood fire burning in front of it. I looked at my watch.
It was one o'clock. Already a very faint glow throbbed in the sky. Out
of the forest, at long intervals, came a dull booming sound like the
shutting of a heavy iron door.

The wagons drew up. We had arrived at our destination.

"We shall be here," I heard Semyonov say, "some five hours or so.
You'd better sleep if you can."

A group of soldiers round the wood fire were motionless, their faces
glowing, their bodies dark. Our wagons, drawn up together, rese