Then I continued, looking not at her, but into the distance, and speaking slowly.
'Mademoiselle, it seems easy now to say what course he should have chosen.

It seems hard now to find excuses for him.

But there was one thing which I plead for him.

The task he was asked to undertake was a dangerous one.

He risked, he knew that he must risk, and the event proved him to be right, his life against the life of this unknown man.
And one thing more; time was before him.