Very few, however, seemed inclined to take this advice. Mrs. Dalziel might have done so had Milly and I consented; but I had an idea that Tony would come to the hotel, if possible, sooner or later, expecting us to be anxious. I was right, for in an hour, or not much more, while we all sat munching sandwiches, hastily provided, the familiar plump figure in khaki stalked into the hall. Milly and I both sprang up, and Tony directed himself toward us; but before he came near enough to speak, I knew that something really terrible had happened. Whether he meant to tell us the truth or not was another question. The jolly, round-faced boy seemed to have lost the characteristics I associated most closely with him; and when a a youth with comical features of the Billiken type is suddenly fitted with a tragic mask, the effect is somehow more alarming than any look of distress on a serious face. He tried to grin, as his mother greeted him like one returning from the dead. "Why, mater," he said, "any one'd think to see and hear you that I'd been blown to smithereens, and this was my ghost. You'll laugh, I guess, when I tell you what really happened. I got leave to make a dash and put you out of your misery." When he had gone so far, he stopped, and swallowed. He looked sick, and all the more so because of the Billiken grin which he was afraid to let drop. His eyes wandered from his mother to me, and I saw pain in them. I felt for the first time that little Tony was a grown-up man. "Well--well?" Milly urged him sharply. "Why don't you tell us?" "I'm a bit out of breath," her brother excused himself. "I hiked over here pretty fast--borrowed a bicycle. Give me a second to get my wind back, sis." But this was more than Milly could do. "Weren't you with the guns to-night?" she asked. "You said you were going to be." "Did I say that? Well, I was. But--but the row you all heard had nothing to do with the _guns_, you know. At least, nothing directly. It was--the ammunition; an accident, you see. One of our chaps dropped a lighted match, and it set fire to part of our train of ammunition. Three shells burst, but--but nobody was hurt--except----" "Except who?" Milly had to break in before Tony could go on. I said nothing at all. I only looked at him. But after that first glance he kept his eyes away from me, I believed purposely. "Except an orderly of--one of the officers, and--oh, very slightly indeed--March. He's hardly hurt at all, but--you mustn't be surprised if you don't see him around for the next few days." The blood rushed up to Milly's pale face, but she pressed her lips together almost viciously, and forced herself not to speak. Her green-gray eyes flashed out one distress signal, then seemed to shut it off deliberately and coldly. "Captain March!" exclaimed kind Mrs. Dalziel, with real distress. "Oh, I'm so sorry that he should be hurt!"