"Yes," answered Colonel Fortescue, his pity divided among Lawrence and his wife, and the honest, well-meaning McGillicuddy, who had brought about a catastrophe.
"For God's sake, sir," said McGillicuddy, "wiping his forehead, be as easy on Lawrence as you can, and give me a day—two days—leave to hunt him up."
This the Colonel did, warning McGillicuddy not to repeat what had occurred on the aviation plain.
The Sergeant got his leave, and another two days, all spent in hunting for Lawrence. There was nowhere for him to go except to the little collection of houses at the railway station. No one had seen Lawrence board the train that passed once a day, but a man, even in uniform, can sometimes slip aboard a train without being seen. The Sergeant came back, looking woe-begone, and Lawrence was published on the bulletin board as "absent without leave."
The shock of Lawrence's departure quite overcame his unhappy wife. She took to her bed and had not strength to leave it.
Sergeant McGillicuddy begged that he might be allowed to tell to the chaplain the provocation he had given Lawrence, who might tell Mrs. Lawrence. The blow struck by Lawrence was the act of a mad impulse, and having struck an officer, Lawrence might well fear to face the punishment. This the Colonel permitted, and the chaplain, sitting by Mrs. Lawrence's bed, told her of it, and of Sergeant McGillicuddy's remorse. Until then, Mrs. Lawrence, lying in her bed, had remained strangely tearless, although a faint moan sometimes escaped her lips. At the chaplain's words she suddenly burst into a rain of tears.
"My husband never meant to desert," she cried between her sobs. "He was doing his duty well—his own Sergeant said so. He must have been crazy when he struck the blow!"
"Poor McGillicuddy," said the chaplain quietly. "The Colonel has forbidden him to speak of it to any one, and he is breaking his heart over it."
No word of forgiveness came from Mrs. Lawrence's lips.
"It is the way with all of them, officers and men, they were all down on my husband because they thought he had done something wrong," said Mrs. Lawrence, with the divine, unreasoning love of a devoted woman.