"Sharlie--with the Germans coming into Ghent do you honestly believe anybody'll remember what he did or didn't do?" "Yes. We're going to stick on with the Belgian Army. It'll be remembered against _us_. Besides, it'll kill his father." "He'll do that any way. He's rotten through and through." "No. He was splendid in the beginning. He might be splendid some day again. But if we let him go off and do this he's done for." "He's done for anyhow. Isn't it better to recognize that he's rotten? McClane wouldn't have him. He saw what he was." "He didn't see him at Berlaere. He _was_ splendid there." "My dear child, don't you know why? He didn't see there was any danger. He was too stupid to see it." "I saw it." "You're not stupid." "He did see it at the end." "At the end, yes--When he let you go back for the guns." She remembered. She remembered his face, the little beads of sweat glittering. He couldn't help that. "Look here, from the time he realised the danger, did he go out or did he stay under cover?" She didn't answer. "There," he said, "you see." "Oh, Billy, won't you leave him one shred?" "No. Not one shred." Yet, even now, if he could only be splendid--If he could only be it! Why shouldn't Billy leave him one shred? After all, he didn't know all the awful things John had done; and she would never tell him.... He did know two things, the two things she didn't know. She had got to know them. The desire that urged her to the completion of her knowledge pursued her now. She would possess him in her mind if in no other way. "Billy--do you remember that day at Melle, when John lost me? Did you tell him I was going back with you?" "No. I didn't." Then he _had_ left her. And he had lied to both of them. "Was the boy dead or alive when he left him?" "He was alive all right. We could have saved him." He had died--he had died of fright, then. "You _said_ he was dead." "I know I did. I lied." "... And before that--when he was with you and Trixie on that battlefield--Did he--" "Yes. Then, too ... You see there aren't any shreds. The only thing you can say is he can't help it. Nobody'd have been hard on him if he hadn't gassed so much about danger." "That's the part you can't understand.... But, Billy, why did you lie about him?" "Because I didn't want you to know, then. I knew it would hurt you, I knew it would hurt you more than anything else." "That was rather wonderful of you." "Wasn't wonderful at all. I knew because what _you_ think, what _you_ feel, matters more to me than anything else. Except perhaps my job. I have to keep that separate." Her mind slid over that, not caring, returning to the object of its interest. "Look here, Billy, you may be right. It probably doesn't matter to us. But it'll be perfectly awful for him." "They can't do anything to him, Sharlie." "It's what he'll do to himself." "Suicide? Not he."