"All the men are," added Mrs. Lewknor, with a provocative little nod at her husband.
"Where did he pick up his pearl?" asked the Colonel. "I love that droning accent of hers. It's like the music of a rookery."
"She can ca-a-a away with the best of them when she likes," chuckled Bess. "You should hear her over the baby!"
"An Aldwolston girl," said Mrs. Trupp. "She's Sussex to the core—with that Spanish strain so many of them have." She added with extreme deliberation,—"She was at the Hohenzollern for a bit one time o day, as we say in these parts."
Mrs. Lewknor coloured faintly and looked at her feet. Next to her Jocko and his Jock the regiment was the most sacred object in her world. But the harm was done. The secret she had guarded so long even from her husband was out. The word Hohenzollern had, she saw, unlocked the door of the mystery for him.
Instantly the Colonel recalled Captain Royal's stay at the hotel on the Crumbles a few years before ... Ernie Caspar's service there ... the clash of the two men on the steps of the house where he was now having tea ... Royal's sudden flight, and the rumours that had reached him of the reasons for it.
The eyes which had looked at him a few minutes since in Saffrons Croft from beneath the fair brow of little Alice were the eyes of his old adjutant.
Then Mr. Trupp's voice broke in upon his reverie.
"Ah," said the old surgeon, "I see you know."
"And I'm glad you should," remarked Mrs. Trupp with the almost vindictive emphasis that at times characterised this so gentle woman.