He glanced down the long list of wounded.
"No, nothing doing! It has probably been in already." He turned in more leisurely fashion to the previous column, and began to read the names of the killed. But his eye got no further than the first name. There were no A's to-day: this began with B.
He laid the paper down, and grinned to himself.
"I'd rather read it than be it!" he reflected.
Then, suddenly, a blinding thought smote him.
Marjorie! What if she had seen it? He sat up excitedly, as a further probability occurred to him.
"She must have been notified privately by the War Office long ago. Then, of all times!" He was talking to himself now, in a low, agitated voice. "My God! I wonder where she is! The old man never told me when he wired; but he'll know." His voice rose. "Nurse! Nurse! Nurse!"
"Great Scott!" announced Mr. Abercrombie from the opposite room: "The lad has succumbed already! And I warned him!"
But already Lady Hermione's tall figure was framed in Roy's doorway.
"Here I am," she said. "Don't shout, please. You will find a bell-push under your pillow, if you look.... Why, my dear, what is it?"