"Ah!" I cried involuntarily. A detail that had escaped me for months sprung vividly up in my consciousness at last. "Millshott!" That had been the name of the barracks stamping the notepaper of that letter—that fated letter signed "RICHARD WYNN." ... Why, why in the name of everything that I most coveted now had I not answered that letter at once? I might have had him. I might have had him....
Little guessing my thoughts, Colonel Fielding went on with his biographical sketch.
"At Millshott Dick had a breakdown. Er ... not to be wondered at, if you knew half he'd been through ever since the ... er ... Somme. It was when he was in hospital that that uncle of his died suddenly. That meant he had come in for all this place here. So when Dick was put on sick leave, it was ... er ... down here that he came." Colonel Fielding gave a sort of little comprehensive gesture about the slanting Welsh landscape, with the blonde squares that meant hay-stubble tilted halfway up the sides of the hills. "And ... er ... here he is. He's ever so much better, of course; pottering about the ... er ... farm, and all that, suits him down to the ground. He looks practically ... er ... himself again.... Er——"
Here the young Colonel broke off and glanced at me, almost as if he were asking the question, "Is there anything else that you want to know?"
I answered that glance by saying, quietly, "Thank you so much for telling me all this. There is only one more thing——"
"Yes?"
"All that I said was in confidence," I told him, rather confused. "My being surprised about ... those names. My asking you any questions. I can't explain, Colonel Fielding. Only, it will remain between ourselves."
"But of course!" agreed Dick Holiday's friend, very quickly and quietly.
I am sure I don't know what he thought. I don't know what he said later to Elizabeth, who, surprised at her lover's long desertion, was waiting just outside the entrance to our Camp. I don't know if Elizabeth wondered over the interminable conversation which I seemed to have been having with her Beloved all the way back from the tea-party.
I did not tell that good little chum one word of what it had all been about. I—who had unbosomed myself to her in the old days on the subject of my love-affair until she was sick of the very name of Harry!—did not feel that I could confide to her a syllable about these new developments in the affaire Richard Wynn. No! I didn't want to speak to her about him or about Muriel! I didn't want to confide in her the quite staggering news that Harry Markham had proposed to me in the garden; nor what I'd said to him, nor why!