"Why not?"
"I always think that blindness is one of the few excuses for suicide," Bertrand answered.
"I'll go down for the week-end and see him, if you like," I said.
Reaching for a telegraph form, I was beginning to write when a maid entered and handed me a buff envelope. I read the contents and passed them over to my uncle.
"There is no answer," I told the maid.
The Secretary of State for War "regretted to inform" me that Captain the Marquess Loring was reported as "missing."
"He's only missing, George," said Bertrand gently, laying his hand over mine on the table.
"Isn't that—rather worse?" I asked, but Bertrand had crept away to leave me undisturbed.
I got away from the Admiralty early on the Saturday afternoon and reached Melton at four. In the disturbance of the previous evening I had forgotten to complete my telegram, and it seemed prudent to leave my luggage at the station until I had found out whether O'Rane could take me in for the week-end. I had won clear of the town and was half-way to the school when I heard my name called and looked up to find Lady Dainton driving with a break-load of convalescent soldiers.