I am accustomed to the regular and predictable evolutions of the march, the drill, and the siege. Yet now within a few days of my conceiving a boyish infatuation with Abigail Frome, I had worked my way round to one of those farcical muddles you see in the fourth act of a comedy. I was forsaking the rebellion in order to forge a new life with a rebel lass, who had fallen in love, not with me, but with my brother, who was dead. I who have slain quite a few men had been caught and recognized because I would not hurt a mongrel. And I who was – if I may say so – doing something that demanded a whiff of courage or so, and that demonstrated my loyalty, would now be denounced as a coward and traitor, and Abigail would consider me in those terms forever.