After the winter holidays a week went by with no letter from Pen. The colonel began to grow anxious, but it was not until the end of the second week that he really became alarmed. And when three weeks had gone by, and neither the mails nor the cable nor the wireless had brought any news of the absent soldier, Colonel Butler was on the verge of despair. He had haunted the post-office as before, he had made inquiry at the state department at Washington, he had telegraphed to Canada for information, but nothing came of it all. Aleck Sands had heard absolutely nothing. Pen's mother, almost beside herself, telephoned every day to Bannerhall for news, and received none. The strain of apprehensive waiting became almost unbearable for them all.
One day, unable longer to withstand the heart-breaking tension, the old patriot sent an agent post-haste to Toronto, with instructions to spare no effort and no expense in finding out what had become of his grandson.
Three days later, from his agent came a telegram reading as follows:
"Lieutenant Butler in hospital near Rouen. Wound severe. Suffering now from pneumonia. Condition serious but still hopeful. Details by letter."
This telegram was received at Bannerhall in the morning. In the early afternoon of the same day Pen's mother received a letter written three weeks earlier by his nurse at the hospital. She was an American girl who had been long in France, and who, from the beginning of the war, had given herself whole-heartedly to the work at the hospitals.
"Do not be unduly alarmed," she wrote, "he is severely wounded; evidently a hand-grenade exploded against his breast; but if we are able to ward off pneumonia he will recover. He has given me your name and address, and wished me to write. I think an early and cheerful letter from you would be a great comfort to him, and I hope he will be able to appreciate some gifts and dainties from home by the time they could reach here. Let me add that he is a model patient, quiet and uncomplaining, and I am told that he was among the bravest of all the brave Americans fighting with the Canadian forces on the Somme."
Between Bannerhall and Sarah Butler's home at Lowbridge the telephone lines were busy that day. It was a relief to all of them to know that Pen was living and being cared for; it was a source of apprehension and grief to them that his condition, as intimated in the telegram, was still so critical.
As for Colonel Butler he was in a fever of excitement and distress. Late in the afternoon he went to his room and, with his one hand, began, hastily and confusedly, to pack a small steamer trunk. His daughter found him so occupied.
"What in the world are you doing?" she asked him.
"I am preparing to go to Rouen," he replied, "to see that my grandson is cared for in his illness in a manner due to one who has placed his life in jeopardy for France."