# The Smart Set/Volume 61/Issue 4/The Problem That Perplexed Nicholson

from The Smart Set, August 1920, pp. 391–399.
THE PROBLEM THAT PERPLEXED NICHOLSON
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
A very serious young man, was Nicholson. I have never met anyone so concerned, so morbidly concerned with abstract principles. I have the most vivid memories of him in those days before the. war—days so immeasurably distant!—tramping along at my side, talking interminably about “ethics.” It was his passion. He would call at my office and wait for me almost any length of time, if in the end he might be rewarded by walking home with me, to discuss what he called “an interesting point or so.” He would have in his pocket little items he had cut out of the newspapers, cases that had come up in the police courts, and so on, which he wanted to analyze.
I rather dreaded him and his “ethics,” and yet I never had the heart to cut short his lengthy propositions. I used to listen to him and even argue with him, very much as one might oblige a chess fiend by playing a game with him. Because the poor devil was so solitary and alone in the world; he hadn't, never had had, another friend, and he was always so outrageously sure of being welcome to me.
A lean, dour young Scot, he had made his own way in life, against every sort of obstacle; he had studied law and been called to the bar, and was then waiting for clients, living in a decent sort of poverty. He wasn't pitiful, in spite of the bleak youth behind him, and his equally bleak present, because he was so confident of success and so absolutely the sort to whom success is inevitable. He had no pleasures, no recreations of any sort; never even read a novel, nothing but these ethical discussions.
The one thing that saved him was his utter lack of egoism. His ethical problems were never personal ones; he didn't even appear to be interested in himself. His questions were always general, and I must admit that his immense and guileless seriousness, combined with this lack of self-consciousness, touched me. And his ingenuousness. He was very fond of quoting judicial decisions and then, at great length, comparing what he called the legal with the ethical aspect. Myself a lawyer twenty years his senior, I never confounded the two.
Even the war, when it came, presented itself to Nicholson as an impersonal problem in ethics. Whether the situation justified the extreme measures he observed being taken?
“It's not a thing to think about,” I told him. “One has to be satisfied with feeling. A question of the temperature of the blood, my boy; it doesn't concern the head.”
“It's not that I'm—bloodless,” he answered, gravely, “simply that I wish to see the right of the thing. I don't intend to be carried away by rash sentimentality.”
Rash he surely was not: for weeks and weeks he came to me almost daily, to argue the ethics of war, until I revolted. I called him morbid, unwholesome, abnormal, said he was unfit, couldn't adjust himself to an actual world. That shut him up. He had nothing to say in his own defence. He kept his ethical doubts to himself for some time.
In the end I suppose he came to some general conclusion satisfactory to himself, for he no longer questioned the war. He said that we must win it, at any cost. And then, of course, came the personal problem. Ought he to enlist?
He discussed that with me, candidly. Could he serve his country better by remaining at home and pursuing his profession, for which he had been preparing for years and years, or by going to fight? I let him talk; he never asked for advice, and wouldn't have got it anyway. It was certainly not for me to argue for or against the indispensability of lawyers.
I could see that he was very much distressed, and he caused me no little distress, too, for he came to my office in season and out of season, sitting patiently in the outer room until I had time for him.
It disturbed me beyond measure to know he was waiting there, with his problems. He had always plenty of cases to cite—things he had read—about conscientious objectors. Were they conscientious? he wanted to know. And only sons, fathers of dependent families, and so on, who were prompt to enlist, were they ethically justified in so doing?
“The question is,” he insisted earnestly, “how can one serve one's country best?”
“The country may thank its fate that all its men aren't so squeamish,” I said.
“Squeamish!” he repeated, hurt and surprised. “I don't think it's that.”
“That and the other complaint of your generation,” I went on. “A strained anxiety to stand out from the herd. I'll wager you'll decide on the unpopular course as the ethical one, just because it is unpopular.”
“You're wrong,” he assured me, solemnly, “altogether wrong. Simply, I don't care to be swayed by enthusiasm instead of guided by reason.”
“I'd go,” I said, “if I weren't too old to be taken.”
“Ah!” said he, “but, you see, you are too old. You haven't any problem. It's been settled for you.”
In the due course of time he solved his problem, decided that, ethically, he ought to volunteer, did so, and was accepted. Evidently that relieved him; he seemed even cheerful in a sober way.
He went through his training well enough. I had postcards from him now and then, and I gained an impression of him, solemnly busy and as friendless as ever.
Then he was sent to the front, and came to say good-bye to me. In his uniform, lean and stiff, with the air of sober satisfaction, he had a sort of Cromwellian look about him. A good fighter, I fancied he would be, inclined toward fanaticism.
I felt sorry for him; not afraid so much that he would be killed or wounded, but that his orderly and inquiring young mind would be overwhelmed by what he was to see. He would find it very difficult, I thought, to discover what was the ethical course to pursue, and when he had found it, he would no longer be free to follow it.
It is so very rarely that we can watch people change. They live and live; nothing happens; external events harass without compelling, nothing occurs furious enough to compel a soul. People grow a little, intensify, become more and more themselves. Thus, in the usual course of events, would Nicholson become more Nicholson; I expected nothing different. Unless his soul were to be maimed or stupefied in that inferno to which he had gone.
II
I heard from him now and then, post-cards, to thank me for tobacco and papers, quite impersonal things which gave me no sort of clue as to what the war was doing to him. I thought of him often enough, and not without anxiety; I imagined painful ethical struggles.
As soon as he got his first home leave, he came directly to me, walked into my office and sat down, quite in the old way to wait until I wasn't busy.
No evolution there. He was absolutely unchanged.
Yes, he said, he'd seen some fairly rotten things, but what could you expect? A fellow wasn't a schoolgirl. Yes, the life was pretty crude, but you got used to that. Couldn't say he'd been exactly frightened, but confoundedly nervous and shaky. Glad to be home—poor devil without any sort of home—but it wasn't altogether a bad sort of life out there. He confessed that it was rather a relief to have no ethical decisions to make; you simply did as you were told.
“It's restful,” he said, “and yet it isn't demoralizing as it would be if you voluntarily let go.”
He was unable to describe this new existence; he told me what he did, but he couldn't convey the flavour. And he preferred to talk about home affairs, the ethics of conscription, of hoarding, of rationing. He thought a great deal about such things, he said.
He went back quite cheerfully. He had an idiotic sort of optimism, of courage, whichever you please. He wasn't resolved to endure anything that might happen; he was simply sure that nothing could happen to him.
He wrote once or twice, and then stopped; didn't answer my letters or acknowledge packages sent him. His name was not among the wounded, missing, or killed, and I didn't care to risk annoying him by writing for information. I could only wait with an anxiety a little surprising, for I hadn't realized what a place he held with me. There wasn't a day that winter when I shouldn't have been glad, remarkably glad, to discuss ethics with him.
Suddenly he appeared; came walking into my room at dusk on a wretched April afternoon. It was too dark to see well, but his grave salutation was enough.
“By Jove!” I cried, with the irrational irritation one always feels when there wasn't any cause for worry after all. “What's been the matter? I haven't heard a word...”
“I know,” he interrupted, sombrely, “I'm sorry. I'm very wet and chilly. Anything to drink....”
I rang for hot water, and lighted the gas. Nicholson had sat down in my particular chair near the fire, but he kept his head averted. There was something strange about him, his voice even....
I hesitated to question him, but while he was swallowing his steaming toddy, I took a good look at him. And I saw that now he was changed, very much changed. He didn't look ill; he was as lean and tough as ever; it was a sort of shadow that lay over his face, a new, grim look of perplexity, as if he faced an ethical problem beyond his comprehension. I had heard and read of the unaccountable ways in which the war affected men's nerves, and I was half inclined to think that he was struggling with one of those sudden attacks of funk.
He was unusually quiet, sat there, glass in hand, looking into the fire. He asked me, politely, if I'd been well; he had been, he assured me, never better in his life. The weather over there, though, got on your nerves, rain and mud and cold. He apologized for not having answered my letters.
“And I shouldn't have dropped in on you like this,” he said; “it might have been inconvenient, I know.... But, to tell you the truth, I didn't expect to see you this time at all. I—I've been in the city almost a week now.”
I was disproportionately hurt.
“A love affair, of course,” I thought, but he went on.
“You see, I'm here on a—rather wretched business. Have to find a fellow's wife and tell her about his—about how—about his dying.”
“One wouldn't expect that to take a week.”
“I know, only I can't find her. He gave me the address, but she's not there; never has been. One Hundred and Fourteen Andrew Street, he told me. I've gone all over the neighbourhood, looked up all the streets with names anything like Andrew—but it's no good.”
I was moderately sympathetic.
“Mistaken somewhere, of course,” I said, “but she'll have had a notice from the Government by this time, or have read it in the papers.”
“Not the details.... You see—”
He stopped.
“Perhaps she's better off without the details,” I suggested at random, and was surprised at the look he gave me. I shouldn't have been astonished to see him cry. His face was crimson, his eyes full of tears.
“It's not a light matter,” he said, passionately, and after a pause, “you see ... they—it looked as if—they had suspected him of being—that is, not officially, but it was talked of.... They said he deserted.... He was mentioned as missing.”
“He may turn up later.”
“No; he's dead.”
“How do you know?”
He didn't answer that.
I was uneasy, a little annoyed at something inexplicable in the affair. It was, taking his nature into consideration, entirely consistent that he should feel ethically bound to continue his search for his dead friend's wife. But who was his friend, though? He'd never spoken, never written of any friend. A wrong address, a mysterious friend, a still more mysterious death.
“There's something behind it,” I said to myself; “he's done something idiotic.”
He broke a long silence.
“I've found another place to try,” he said. “A 'Miss' Alice Corbett. Very likely it's 'Mrs.' Alice was her name, you know.”
“Have you written yet, or communicated in any way?”
“No,” he answered reluctantly, “I thought—perhaps—you'd care to come with me?”
I agreed, but after that he seemed in no hurry to go. He sat by the fire smoking, very silent. It grew quite dark, and I suggested that if we were to go before dinner...
“I—I—to tell you the truth,” he said, impulsively, “I hate like the devil to do it!”
“A bit harrowing,” I admitted, “although she'll certainly have heard of her husband's death long ago. But look here,” I added, “don't be—an ethical ass. If there's anything unpleasant you think she ought to know, for heaven's sake, keep it to yourself. Leave her in peace, and him.”
“It's nothing of that sort!” he said vehemently, “I want to contradict any unfavourable impression she may possibly have got—or ever may get. You see, I want—I ought, you know, to let her—to tell her that he died like a hero. She'll simply have read that he's missing.”
“How did he die then?”
“Oh! A—a sort of accident. I've thought it all out. I'm going to tell her that the snipers got a friend of his, and that he—he went out alone, against orders, to pot a few Boches, as a sort of revenge, and got his. Died at once. Women will believe anything, won't they?”
My legal experience didn't confirm—that idea. I smiled a little.
“She's been very ill,” he went on, “she may not be alive now. But if she is, I want—I ought to give her what comfort I can. Any sort of lie, if it will help the poor woman.”
“But how did he really die?” I insisted.
Nicholson didn't answer. I delayed a moment to turn out the gas, and then followed him to the door. I had my hand on the knob, when his voice sounded abruptly from the darkness of the hall.
“I killed him,” he said.
III
It was exactly like a blow, a physical blow. I wanted to sit down and close my eyes, while I recovered.
“An accident,” I murmured.
“Come on!” he said, “it's growing late!”
I followed him into the rainy street, and he immediately took my arm.
“I'd better tell you,” he said, in a very low voice. “You see—it's almost too much—in fact—one can't always decide—alone. I don't know—can't tell—if it's a—a crime...”
“Go ahead!” I encouraged him.
After a minute he began, very painstakingly.
“I didn't really notice him even when he first came out. Morose sort of fellow—not popular at all—big, dark, heavy chap with long eyes like a weasel. He didn't try to make any friends, kept to himself as much as he could, and was eternally writing letters home. Very slack, too, always in trouble over his equipment, and so on. It wasn't so much laziness; he simply couldn't look decent. You know the sort. Loose kind of figure, always had a—a blurred look.
“All of a sudden he began running after me. Without the least encouragement on my part, I can promise you. In fact, I rather disliked him. I got horribly sick of him, hanging about in his skulking way. I couldn't get rid of him, he was at my heels all the time. I couldn't make it out at all; he didn't want to talk, he never asked me questions or told me about himself. He was like one of those stray dogs that follow you, you know.... Poor beggar! I was sorry for him, somehow....
“One day he sat down beside me and began telling me in a whisper that he wouldn't stand it any longer, he'd have to go home. Lots of fellows feel like that, though, now and then. I didn't pay much attention, but he caught hold of my sleeve and began to mutter:
“'I must go! I must go!'
“'What's up?' I asked him.
“He said his wife was ill, very ill. He'd applied for leave and been refused. I told him the reason for that was that there'd probably be an engagement before long.
“'I must go!' he kept on. 'What can I do?'
“'Nothing!' I told him. 'But buck up and be a man. You have to expect this sort of thing, in war time. Damned hard, of course,'
“He began telling me about his wife then, and it was—really, old man, it was—extraordinary. You wouldn't have imagined him capable of it.... He—he made you fairly see the poor little woman—only nineteen, she was, and there was a baby coming. She wasn't expected to pull through. I've never been—never cared for a woman like that myself, but I can understand it. It was—really a—a beautiful thing, his devotion. She was all he had, all he cared about. He only wanted to see her, once more, and then get himself killed. He said he had no use for life at all if he lost her.
“The next day he showed me letters, one from the doctor, and one from the girl herself. It was the most pitiful thing.... Wanted to see him once more. You could tell that she was afraid to die, although she tried to be plucky. He was almost mad.
“'For God's sake, tell me what to do!' he kept asking me. 'I can't let her die without even saying good-bye to her. Do you think any cause in the world is worth the agony she is suffering?”
“I could understand his point of view, but I couldn't see any way out. There wasn't the slightest chance of his getting leave at that time. All leaves had been stopped, no exceptions, absolutely. Something big in the air...
“I—really, the beastly business—really haunted me. I—it almost seemed as if—it weren't—well, worth it, you know. Made you realize what war did. ... Anything so damnably cruel—you know—didn't seem so—elevating, after all.”
Nicholson was growing incoherent; he saw it, and stopped for a bit.
“But I couldn't help him,” he went on at last. “Tried to cheer him up, and all that. He'd shut me up every time. 'Think of it!' he'd shout. 'That poor little girl, dying alone. That terror and agony, all alone. If she could only hold my hand, she says, she wouldn't mind.' Well, you can imagine.... I hadn't thought much of that side of the thing before—the women at home, you know.... He was really a bit off—raved, absolutely. But you could understand. He told me all about her, what a plucky little soul she'd been. I wish I could make you see him; you could understand the thing so much better. Big, hulking, stupid sort of ass, quite isolated, no one liked him, men or officers. A rotten bad soldier, altogether out of place. No energy, no alertness. He couldn't be trained. And I imagine he'd been the same sort of failure in civil life. There was only this girl. She'd seen something good and—lovable in him, something no one else would ever see.”
He stopped again.
“If I could only make you see—a little,” he continued earnestly. “I'd like you to understand it all, if possible....
“It was one afternoon when I'd been sent to a farmhouse—sort of headquarters back of the lines, with a message, and he came running after me. Said he'd got permission to come along. He was out of breath at first, and I suppose the dust choked him; he held on to my arm and stumbled along without a word for half a mile. Then he said:
“'You've got to do it!'
“'What?' I asked him.
“'You're a first-class shot,' he whispered. 'Shoot me!'
“I was shocked.
“'You want me to kill you?' I said. 'You're mad!'
“'No, not that. But a wound, in the arm, just enough ... so I can get home before it's too late.'
“I shook him off, swore at him, I think. I called him a coward, everything. But he stumbled along beside me, telling me I'd have to do it.
“He made me read another letter he'd got.... He was crying—tears running down his dirty face, and gasping and sobbing....
“I give you my word, you've no idea how that sort of thing upsets you. Then he—actually got down on his knees.... I was disgusted with him—but—awfully sorry for him. In the end I said I'd do it.
“I went on to deliver my message, and told him to wait for me near a marsh I had to cross.... I don't know, to this minute, old man, whether I was right or wrong in consenting. Whether humanity isn't after all a higher—”
“Never mind ethics!” I interrupted. “Let's hear what you did.”
He went on.
“When I came back it was growing dark, and I wanted to put it off. I couldn't see properly. But he wouldn't wait.
“It was a very lonely place—that marsh—with a sort of plank walk across it that made a short cut from one part of the high road to the other; saved almost half a mile. We could have seen anyone coming, a long way off, in that flat country. We stopped there and talked it over. We were going to put it down to snipers. He'd thought out a whole story, very plausible. He showed me the exact spot to be hit on his arm, and he tied a white handkerchief over it, so that I shouldn't miss it in the dusk.
“He was to stand on the high road, where he could see anyone coming along the road behind me, and I was to go a few paces along the plank walk over the marsh, where I could see the road to the trenches. I tried even then to argue with him. I pointed out that the thing might easily be discovered and we'd both be court-martialled. But he said he'd risk that, and that I'd already promised. So—!
“'I'll hold out my arm,' he told me. 'And don't fire too near; there mustn't be any powder burns.”
“My hand wasn't steady; I warned him of that, but he said he didn't care. He was quite cool, all his hysteria gone. He was simply anxious to get it over.
“'Come on!' he kept urging. 'It's growing dark!' and it was. I could see the white handkerchief plainly enough, but the dusty road looked like a blur, and there was a sort of mist over the marsh. It's such a flat country, you know, it—somehow seems lonelier than the mountains....
“There he stood, with his arms stretched out. I couldn't see his face any longer.
“'Quick!' he said. And I fired.
“I don't know how I did it.... I didn't realize at first that I'd missed; I thought it was all right. I called out to ask him, but he didn't answer. He came running forward in a queer, blind way, along the plank bridge toward me. Then all of a sudden he stumbled and fell like a log into the marsh.
“I ran up and got him by the collar, and tried to pull him out, but he was a dead weight.... I must have got him through the lung, I think. He ... he made an awful sound....
“After a bit I got his head and shoulders on the boards, but his legs were sunk deep in the swamp. Anyway it didn't matter; in a minute he was dead.
“I let him slip back and he disappeared in the mud. I went on alone. No one asked me about him....
“That's all,” he added abruptly.
IV
His story was finished; he had nothing further to say.
He fell silent, an aloof sort of silence which invited no comment. He wished evidently to meditate on this lamentable history; perhaps he was seeking in it some justification for himself, or for that other fellow.
I am not, I dare say, very different from the mass of mankind; any sort of misfortune irritates me. And while at heart I was sorry for him and for his victim, and for the poor woman, I was not just then conscious of any such emotion. I rebelled against our errand.
“And you're going to tell his wife that he died a hero?” I asked. “It's monstrous, farcical.”
“No,” he answered.. “I've thought it all out. It's the only atonement I can make.”
One had to admire his courage in facing this woman, under the circumstances. There was something in his ethics, after all! I strode along beside him through the rainy streets, resentfully respectful.
We reached the house; he walked briskly up the steps, rang the bell, waited, rang again.
“I hope it isn't too late,” he whispered.
Immediately I had a picture of the unhappy girl lying dead, somewhere in that dark and silent house, or perhaps dying, weak and gasping, at this instant. He didn't grasp at this straw as I should have done, as a chance of relief from an intolerable situation; no, he really wanted to see her, to tell her his flaming lie, to “atone,” as he put it, for his horrible error.
At last the door opened.
“Well!” said a woman's voice, good-humouredly.
Nicholson asked for “Mrs. Frank Corbett.”
“I suppose you mean me, sir,” she answered. “Step in, please.”
And we followed her down a passage to a musty little sitting-room. She turned up the gas.
“Sit down, please, gentlemen,” she said, and herself remained standing in the doorway, looking at us anxiously.
She was an angular, middle-aged woman with a severe face and luminous, patient eyes, one of those faces seen only among the poor, expressing such limitless endurance. Not resistance, not resignation, simply endurance, like a rock on which all the storms beat.
“I'm trying to find Mrs. Frank Corbett,” Nicholson explained. “I'm afraid it's another mistake. I'm sorry we've troubled you—”
“If it's news about Frank—Francis William Corbett, in the Blank regiment,” she said, “I'm his sister. And I got that notice—long ago.”
She was struggling painfully to keep back her tears while she addressed herself to Nicholson's uniform. “If it's a—a last message, gentlemen, I'm the one that's entitled to hear it. I'm his sister, and his next of kin.”
“But I've a—a personal message for his wife,” said Nicholson, gently.
“He never had a wife,” she answered. “I'm the next of kin, sir. I'm really entitled to—the message....”
She had begun to weep quietly.
“Frank never had a wife,” she repeated. “Never anyone in the world but me. If there's any news, gentlemen, I've a right to hear it. Me and no one else. Missing—that's all they've told me....”
“I'm afraid,” said Nicholson, gravely, “that he must have contracted a marriage unknown to you. I've seen letters from his wife—”
The woman shook her head.
“Not my Frank. Not Francis William Corbett in the Blank regiment. Not him, sir.”
And she took a photograph from the chimney piece and held it out to Nicholson. He stared at it with shocked eyes.
“That's he... I'm sorry—very sorry. But in war time—extenuating circumstances...” he murmured. “No doubt it was a very hasty marriage—”
“He couldn't have been married,” she insisted. “Why, he lived in this very house all his life; he never stopped out a single night, nor hardly ever missed a meal. Don't you think I'd have known? And him and me....”
She wiped her eyes roughly.
“And what's more, he never made more than two pounds a week, and he gave it all to me, except it might be two or three shillings he'd keep out.”
We were silent. She waited, then went on:
“I've made up my mind to losing him. This 'missing,' it's the worst of all. I know he's dead, or I'd have heard more. Only, it would do one good to know a bit about it—how it happened.. And that's what you came for, isn't it, sir? That you were going to tell his wife, only he hadn't one?”
“Yes,” said Nicholson solemnly. “He died a hero.”
She was extraordinarily pleased.
“Ah!” she cried. “A hero, was he? Poor Frank!”
Nicholson plunged into his story. He had evidently rehearsed it well, for he was so fluent as to be almost unconvincing; very circumstantial, vivid, a tale of reckless bravery and a memorable death.
“Of course this is unofficial, you know. He'd disobeyed orders so—they couldn't give him any recognition. But I—as his friend—he had mentioned a wife—”
Miss Corbett shook her head and wiped her eyes again.
“I can't think however that got about, Poor Frank! A regular hero ... and me—all the time! It goes to show how easy it is to misjudge others. Poor Frank! I'm sure I never expected it of him.”
Her tears began to flow again, and she pressed her handkerchief against her mouth,
“Oh, gentlemen!” she cried, “I feel—I've been cruel—and now it's too late...! I can't make it up to him, never, never!”
“I'm very sorry,” said Nicholson, feebly, “very sorry. I thought—you see—”
“Oh, I'm glad enough to hear about it!” she interrupted, “and it'll be a comfort to me my life long, that I can be proud of him. But I'd misjudged him so!
“He never was—what you'd call a hero. Always nervous and timid like. Wouldn't take his own part when the other boys'd badger him. You see, gentlemen, I brought him up from a baby ... and it's so easy to misjudge them you know too well.... I'd been fighting that—weakness in him for so many years—
“And when the war came, it seemed he was hanging back. Mrs. Cooke's boy from the next door, he enlisted, and my cousins, too, and the young man from 61—a fair dozen from this street. I was sort of ashamed, Frank being so strong. I was at him day and night. 'Don't you want to serve your King and your country? Where's your manhood?' And he'd put me off, and say he wanted time to think it over.
“Then, one afternoon, he went to Uncle Gibbs's. Their second boy was leaving the next day, and they had wine. Frank wasn't used to it. It must have gone to his head, like, and all the talk about the army.... Anyhow, he came home late, red as a lobster and talking very loud. 'Well,' he says, 'I've done it! I've enlisted!'
“He went through his training, right enough, and started off to the front as jolly as you please. Told me that he liked the life. But as soon as ever he got out there, he wrote me a letter. 'It's—' excuse me, gentlemen, 'it's hell, he wrote. 'I'll lose my mind. I can't stand it. Make an excuse,' he says, 'Write that you're very sick so I can get leave.'
“Well, after a bit, I did, and he came home. He was in a terrible way, so nervous he couldn't sleep nor eat. He owned up, frank enough, that he wanted to desert. But I wouldn't give him any peace. I frightened and I shamed him into going back. 'You'll be caught sure enough and shot,' I told him. 'Isn't that better,' says he, 'than having your—your insides torn out by shrapnel, or half your face shot off?”
“And I—you see, I didn't understand then—I called him a coward and—well, he went back. But he was soon writing again. 'Get me home somehow, for God's sake! Get me home, or I'll go mad!' I wrote him I couldn't and wouldn't if I could. 'Stick it out like a man,' I says. Then one more letter from him—fair crazy, it was—and I never heard again.”
She looked at us with solemn, tearful eyes,
“And he must have made up his mind to make the best of it after all,” she added. “It all goes to show you never can tell what's in a man. Poor Frank a hero!”
Once again she dried her eyes, and turned to Nicholson.
“It'd be a great comfort to me if you'd kindly tell it all to me again, sir,” she said. “You did make it seem so beautiful!”
The poor fellow turned quite pale. I was really sorry for him, having to tell that yarn again, knowing what he knew now. He did it, splendidly, though, and we rose to take our leave.
The poor woman pressed Nicholson's hand fervently.
“Thank you, sir! Thank you!” she said, and had no words to express anything more.
But her luminous, patient eyes told her gratitude, her consolation, her sorrowful, remorseful pride in her hero brother.
V
We were out in the rain again, going home, at a terrific pace set by my ethical young friend. He was silent. I tried to be, but couldn't!
“So there wasn't any wife!” I said, with a sort of malice.
“No,” he answered sombrely. “It seems there wasn't. No; I was—deceived, I suppose.”
“You were!” I assured him, “A lie, the letters, and the pathos, and the devotion, all of it. A preposterous lie, invented by a coward to get himself away from the trenches, to save his own precious skin. But a not very successful device, was it, considering how it ended?”
Nicholson walked on, a bit more slowly.
“Well,” he said, after a very long pause, “it's a very difficult problem.... But—do you know ... I'm damned glad I killed the poor devil....”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1955, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 68 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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