"Well! The condition was that he wasn't to be 'Mr. Wynn' any more. He was to assume the name that went with the property. It's ... er ... often done; by deed-poll, as they call it," explained Colonel Fielding, as if to a child. "You pay—I forget how much, and then you have it in the Gazette and the Morning Post and things that your name isn't Smith any more, but Jones or Robinson or ... anything you choose. You understand that?"
"Oh, yes! I've heard about such a thing before, thanks!" I laughed a little impatiently. "It isn't that that I don't understand. It's about Mr. Richard Wynn——"
"Richard Holiday now," Colonel Fielding corrected me. "Well! He stayed in Canada until this ... er ... war broke out. And then ... Am I just to run over what happened to him, Miss Matthews?"
I reddened a little at having to seem eager to hear all I could about this young man, who was nothing to me.... Yet how could I help being eager? I loved him. And I knew so little about him; only the little that I had seen. I must hear, from his friend, all that he would tell me of Dick.... Whether Wynn or Holiday, his first name would remain the dearest on earth to me!
"Please," I said.
So Colonel Fielding's lady-like voice took up the tale. "Dick Holiday came over with that first lot of Canadians, I think they were. 'Little Black Devils'—you know the badge? So do the ... er ... Boches! It was Salisbury Plain for him that winter ... er ... mud and circuses! Then France at last; and Ypres. There he was wounded and gassed—
"And gassed!"
"Yes, and ... er ... why he didn't get his commission on the field I can't tell you. He earned it all right, as well as his Military Medal."
"I'm sure he did!"
"Then I met him in hospital; hadn't see him since we were at Haileybury together," went on Colonel Fielding. "Then we both got out again together. Then he was wounded again ... er ... badly, in the knee. Also shell-shock. That was last winter. He did get his commission then. They brought him home and put him on ... er ... what they called 'light' duty at home for a bit. It meant he had to do the office-work of three ... er ... men at Millshott Barracks——"