He said: "Markham is a great pal of yours, is he?"
"Yes," I agreed.
"Nothing more?"
I said: "I think you guessed that he was the man I cared about once."
"Once?" he repeated eagerly. "Why not now?" He knew as well as I did! Sure of it, I laughed softly as I glanced about the cleared field. I said, "I don't see that coat of yours anywhere about."
"Must be in the next field," he returned, coolly. We walked on, over the stubble and through a gap in the hedge to where the sheaves still stood in their pyramids of five.
Then pausing again, he added. "What about my question, though?"
My heart was beating very quickly under that well-worn smock of mine, but I managed to say, "Which question was that? You always ask so many, Captain Holiday."
"I've told you so often not to call me that," he retorted. He paused, standing tall and dark and graceful between the mauve evening sky and the russet stocks. "My name," he began—and I expected to hear the familiar protest—"my name is Dick, you know." But he ended with an announcement which I suppose was meant to take away my breath.
"My name was Richard Wynn."