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“Perhaps I could have saved him, with only a word, two words out of my mouth. Perhaps I could have saved us all. But I never spoke them. Strange it is that one could run crying to the house of a man that one loved, to save him from danger, and that he could say to one, have I not told you not to come to this house? And strange it is that one should withdraw silent and shamed. For he spoke hard and bitter words to me, and shut the door of his soul on me, and I withdrew. But I should have hammered on it,I should have broken it down with my naked hands,I should have cried out there not ceasing, for behind it was a man in danger, the bravest and gentlest of them all. So I who came to save was made a supplicant; and because of the power he had over me, I held, in the strange words of the English, I held my peace.” — Alan Paton