There was no one to help Dora bear her sorrow. It prostrated her. But for the forlorn hope that the escaped trooper might have made a mistake, and that, after all, Dick might have been saved, she would have broken down utterly. It was unnecessary to tell the colonel that his well-meant postponement of the sad news was wasted effort. He ventured awkwardly to comment upon the death of their old friend. "A good chap--a wild chap," he observed "but of no real use to anybody but his country, which has reason to thank him. If I'd been in his place, I should have done the same. But, if I'd done what he did before he left home, I think I should have died in the firing line, quietly and decently. Poor chap! Poor chap!" "What do you mean by 'if you had done what he did before he left home?'" asked the grief-stricken girl. "I mean the forgery." "What forgery?" "Do you mean to say you haven't heard? Why, everybody knows about it. Ormsby kept it dark as long as he could, but Herresford forced his hand. Don't you know what they're saying?" "I know what Mr. Ormsby said. But I warn you not to expect me to believe any lie that ungenerous, cruel man has circulated about the man I loved." "Well, they say he went out to the war to get shot." "It's a lie!" "He was in an awful hole, up to his eyes in debt, and threatened with arrest. He almost ruined his father and mother, and forged his grandfather's signature to two checks, robbing him of seven thousand dollars--or, rather, defrauded the bank, for Herresford won't pay, and the bank must. It is poor Ormsby who will be the sufferer. He suspected the checks, and said nothing--just like him--the only thing he could do, after the row at the club dinner." "Is it on the authority of Mr. Ormsby that these foul slanders on my dead lover have been made? Are they public property, or just a private communication to you, father?" "It is the talk of the town, girl. Why, his own mother has had to own up that the checks were forgeries. He cashed two checks for her, and saw his opportunity to alter the amounts, passing over to her the original small sums, while he kept the rest to pay his debts. Herresford's opinion of him has been very small all along; but nobody expected the lad to steal. Such a pity! Such a fine chap, too--the sort of boy girls go silly about, but lacking in backbone and stability. The matter of the checks has been kept from his father for the present, poor man. He knows nothing whatever about it." "Father, the things you tell me sound like the horrible complications of a nightmare. They are absurd." "Absurd! Why, I've seen the forged checks, girl. The silly young fool forgot to use the same colored ink as in the body of the check. A few days afterward, the added figures and words dried black as jet, whereas the ink used by Herresford dried a permanent blue." "Mr. Ormsby showed you the checks?"