She stopped, for this time her lips were really trembling. They looked at one another, the four men, and there was not a volunteer for the task. After a minute, however, Arthur, lifting his eyes from the rug which he had been intently studying, found the others were all facing him.
"You're the one," said Captain Stephen Thorndyke.
"I think you are," agreed Colonel Chester Thorndyke.
"It's up to you, Art," declared Cadet Lieutenant Thorndyke, with his usual decision of manner.
So, although Arthur protested that he was not as fit for the mission as any of the others, they would not let him off.
"You're the one he swears by," Stephen said, and Stuart added:
"Put on your old khaki clothes, Art; that'll tickle the major so he won't mind what you tell him."
It was a suggestion which appealed to the young clergyman as he lay awake that night, thinking how he should tell the boy in the morning. It seemed to him somehow that it would take the edge off the thing if he could meet David in the old uniform which the child was always begging to see.
Just before he fell asleep he thought of his Memorial Day address. Since the morning, day before yesterday, when David's play had interrupted his first futile efforts at it, he had found no time to work on it. He had had a wedding and two funerals to attend, besides having to look after the preparation for his Sunday services. The following Saturday would be Memorial Day. Meanwhile—there was David.
The next morning Mrs. Thorndyke, on her way to Arthur's study to tell him that the doctor had telephoned that he would bring the English surgeon to the house at eleven o'clock for the preliminary examination, ran into a tall figure in a khaki uniform, a battered slouch hat in his hand.