It was the inference, too, with regard to a host of cousins of the first, second, and third degrees, by blood and by marriage, who would have made a small army in themselves. Some were Vio’s kin, and some were mine; some by the chances of Boston intermarriage were related to us both. Not one of them but had been modestly heroic, the women not less than the men. Some had given their lives, some their limbs or eyesight; all, their time and money. Even Wolf and Vio had subscribed to funds till reduced to what they considered indigence. It was a distinguished clan; and I its one pitiable member. *CHAPTER IX* Going back to the hotel, I had my first pang of regret for having waked up on that midnight at Bourg-la-Comtesse. It was the same reflection; the dead were so much wiser in staying dead. I guessed that during the weeks when I was missing Vio had mourned for me with a grief into which a new element had come when my clothes were found on the bank of the Padrille. That was a mistake, that my clothes should be found there. A missing man should be traced to a prison or a hospital, or remain gloriously missing. He should have no interval of safety in which to go in bathing, a hundred miles from the spot on which he had last been seen alive, not even to be drowned. There was a mystery in that which might easily become a flaw in a soldier’s record, and which to a woman as proud as Vio would be equivalent to dishonor. That there should be a question of the kind with regard to her own husband... So I began to do justice to the courage she displayed. Rising to the occasion in a way I could only call magnificent, she sank herself, her opinions, and her plans—I called them plans to avoid a more definite word—to meet the imperative in the situation. What lay in the back of her mind I didn’t dare inquire, notwithstanding the signs that betrayed her. And yet the more splendid her gesture the deeper my humility at having to call it forth. It made me like a man, once strong and active, reduced to living on the doles of the compassionate. I could never be independent again; I could never again have the mental freedom of one as to whom there is nothing unexplained. By a process of bluff I might carry the thing off; but to that I felt an unspeakable aversion. It was not that I was unwilling to second Vio; it was incapacity. Having been guilty of the indiscretion of waking at Bourg-la-Comtesse, I began to regret the long, dull, peaceful routine of Creed & Creed’s. I do not assert that these things were as clear in my mind on that day as they are on this; but they were there confusedly. Every impression I received that afternoon was either confused and painful or strikingly vivid, as to one waking from an anesthetic. Of those more vivid one in particular stands out in my recollection.