"I could, I think, claim it as a right.

At all events I ask for it as I shall never ask for anything else in all my life." There was a sort of explanation of his act, Harry Feversham remembered; but it was so futile when compared with the overwhelming consequence.
Ethne had unclenched her hands; the three feathers lay before his eyes upon the table.

They could not be explained away; he wore "coward" like a blind man's label; besides, he could never make her understand.
However, she wished for the explanation and had a right to it; she had been generous in asking for it, with a generosity not very common amongst women.

So Feversham gathered his wits and explained:-- "All my life I have been afraid that some day I should play the coward, and from the very first I knew that I was destined for the army.

I kept my fear to myself.