"Except an orderly of—one of the officers, and—oh, very slightly indeed—March. He's hardly hurt at all, but—you mustn't be surprised if you don't see him around for the next few days."
The blood rushed up to Milly's pale face, but she pressed her lips together almost viciously, and forced herself not to speak. Her green-gray eyes flashed out one distress signal, then seemed to shut it off deliberately and coldly.
"Captain March!" exclaimed kind Mrs. Dalziel, with real distress. "Oh, I'm so sorry that he should be hurt!"
"So are we all," Tony responded; and voice and face would have told me, if I hadn't guessed before, that he was either keeping back something of grave importance, or else carefully lying.
"Will he really be all right again in a few days?" the dear little lady went on.
"Er—perhaps not all right, but—nothing to worry about," said Tony, with lumbering cheerfulness. "He's in no danger of death, anyhow, that's one good thing."
"What about Major Vandyke?" I heard myself say; and even as the question came, I wondered why I should have thought of it in that connection. But somehow it would out, and only my subconscious self, far down in mysterious depths, knew the reason.
"Oh, Major Vandyke! Why, as it happens, he went over to the other side of the river in his motor car—on business."
A flame of suspicion in me was lit by that match.
"To Mexico!" I exclaimed. "But I was told only this very day, by Captain March, that no officer or soldier was allowed to cross the river on any pretext whatever."