He could never be like them.

He could have wept in his longings.
He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of final blame.

It--whatever it was--was responsible for him, he said.

There lay the fault.
The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn young man to be something much finer than stout fighting.

Heroes, he thought, could find excuses in that long seething lane.