Of another thing, too, I was certain. He had been an officer in the Army. On the night before we started for Devonshire I had a talk with the C.O. of the Officers' Training Corps to which Edgecumbe was attached. He had been under his command only a few days, but the attention of the C.O. had already been drawn to him. This man happened to be an old acquaintance of mine, and he talked with me freely.
'You say you know Edgecumbe?' he asked.
'Yes,' I replied; 'he is a friend of mine.'
'I had a long report of him from France, where he seems to have done some fine things,' said the colonel. 'Of course you know he is to be decorated?'
'I had a hint of it before I left France,' I replied.
'Would it be an indiscretion to ask you to tell me what you know of him?'
'I don't know that it would,' was my answer. 'Only I should like you to understand that what I am going to tell you is in confidence. You see, the situation is rather peculiar, and I do not think he wants his mental condition known.'
'Why? Is there anything wrong about him?'
'Oh, no, nothing.' And then I repeated the story of our meeting in
Plymouth.
'And his memory's not come back?' said Colonel Heywood.