Chapter 30

Timid and irresolute, fearing to know the best or the worst from the lips of a mere girl, I asked myself was it I--I, who, at the bombardment of Rangoon, at the storm of the Dagon Pagoda, and in the night attack on Frome, had feared neither the bullets nor poisoned arrows of the two-sworded barbarians whom it was our ill-luck to encounter in those tropical regions; I, who, without fear or flinching, was now ready to meet the Russians in Turkey, or anywhere else; was it I that could not muster hardihood to reveal th…