"It is a wonder that he lived to see the escape, let alone survived our long flight across the countryside. What a bloody hell that was. Stealing food, horses when we could get them, riding or walking the endless miles by night, hiding out like thieves and murderers by day. All in the land of our birth, and the home that we had fought for. After what we had already been through, I don't know how he endured it. I, at least, had thoughts of you, though I had lost all hope of your love. He had nothing but fever and chills, and a strength that grew less each day." "My God. Michael. Did he know about the letter, the one you thought I wrote?" "Yes, love. We'd been together through so much, and were now thrown into such a desperate pass..... There could be no secrets between us. But he loved you, as cousin and friend, and never held it against you." "Then he died thinking. . .that I was in love with those who did this to you. Oh, it is horrible." "Easy, lass. His pain is over." Again they embraced, taking that last human comfort against young and tragic death. Then Michael began to pace again, both to warm himself, and to finish what he must say. For he, too, carried a burden of guilt and remorse. "As I said, it is a wonder that he survived it. But some last obsession drove him: whether hope or madness, I could never say. He was determined to return to the home of his fathers, and perform some last act of heroism." He paused. "There is something else I haven't told you. Something very painful to me." "What is it, Michael?" He could not face her, as if she were some part of himself which he had shamed. And the look of self-reproach that she had long known in him, returned with a force she had not yet seen. "It was a horror for me to watch his decline, his hopeless battle in the stockade. Because we are so much alike, and because I felt..... I often felt that he made my mistakes for me. That I learned, and survived, only because of him. Many is the time that my own temper was about to explode, to my injury, and possible undoing.... But it was always James who struck the guard first, or raised his voice in anger at the outrage we all felt, but lacked the courage to act upon. "It is a terrible thing to think that he died for that courage, and that because of my cowardice I live. Seeing the black end to which we must all come, still I shunned the fight. After the first year..... I only turned the other cheek, again and again. I told myself that I had to survive, just keep trying and hoping. But survival becomes a poor excuse, when pride is lost. "It will be many years," he concluded, "before I can look myself in the face when I think of James Talbert."