"I gave no thought to whether you specifically could bear it," Susan points out. It sounds harsh to her ears as she says it, but it is the truth. "Just that no one ought to have such a burden when it isn't a guarantee and there's no way of confirming what's actually happening back home. In fact if you asked me before today, I believe I'd say I thought you could bear it. It's horrid and devastating and one oughtn't need to know how it feels, but I don't think it will break you. You're more than the man in the play, you know, just like Lancelot is more than the man from the stories." And, she hopes, she's more than the girl from the children's books. "I can't speak for the others." But her mind is whirling. "I shouldn't be surprised if some merely took cues from the fact that you didn't know yet, and made assumptions from there."