She had fulfilled her trust. But only to experience, the moment
the deed was done, the full poignancy of remorse. Before the act, while
the choice had lain with her, the betrayal of her husband had loomed
large; now she saw that to treat him as she had treated him was the true
betrayal, and that even for his own sake, and to save him from a fearful
sin, it had become her to destroy the letters.
Now, it was no longer her duty to him which loomed large, but her duty to
the innocent, to the victims of the massacre which she might have stayed,
to the people of her faith whom she had abandoned, to the women and
children whose death-warrant she had preserved. Now, she perceived that
a part more divine had never fallen to woman, nor a responsibility so
heavy been laid upon woman. Nor guilt more dread!
She writhed in misery, thinking of it. What had she done? She could
hear afar off the sounds of the camp; an occasional outcry, a snatch of
laughter. And the cry and the laughter rang in her ears, a bitter
mockery. This summer camp, to what was it the prelude? This forbearance
on her husband's part, in what would it end? Were not the one and the
other cruel make-believes? Two days, and the men who laughed beside the
water would slay and torture with equal zest.
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