whispered. “Truly terrible.”

“But will it not be so much better to have an end to this incessant waiting?”

“I thought it would. But I fancy I can hear each plaintive cry of a grieving mother and every shot that each gun has fired.” She turned to Anne and shook her head slightly. “Do you not worry for Captain Pottinger?”

“Indeed I do,” the other woman confided after a pause. “But war is in men’s hearts. They are incomplete without it. I content myself to know that, should Captain Pottinger fall, he shall have fallen for the cause he loves.”

“I cannot reconcile myself with that,” Elizabeth whispered. “I should die alongside dear Captain Tenterchilt before accepting that there was a cause worth him giving...

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