"Enteric and starvation, and a bit of a wound, too. I was taken prisoner,
but, when the ambulance cart was left in a general stampede, I was just
able to cry out to a nigger to cut my bonds. He set me free; but,
afterward, I think I went mad. I was in our lines, I know. It was a good
old Yankee who set me free; but, when reason came, I was again in the
wrong camp. The ambulance cart had got into its own lines again. At any
rate, I was in different hands, with a different regiment, packed off to
a proper prison camp. I sent word home, or thought I'd sent word. I
thought you all knew. By Jove, what a lark it will be to turn up and see
their faces!"

Dick took a long draught at the brandy, and a little color came into his
face.

"I suppose they'll be glad and all that, as I'm something of a hero," he
continued. "A chap on the train told me that the story of my capture got
into the papers, and was written up for all it was worth. Another smack
in the eye for Ormsby, that! Nutt got away, and told you I was dead, I
suppose."

"Yes," answered the colonel, gloomily; then, leaning across the table:
"Dick, my boy, I don't want to be hard on you. We are all liable to err.
Don't you think it would have been better if you had remained dead?"

Dick looked blankly into his friend's face for some moments. A look of
fear came into his eyes.

"What's the matter? What's happened? Dora's--alive?"

"Yes, of course."

"And my father and mother?"

"Oh, yes, yes, they're well--as well as can be expected under the
circumstances."

"Well, what's the matter, then? What's happened?"

"Dick, you must know perfectly well what has happened. Your grandfather
found out--the--er--what you did before you went away."

"What I did before I went away?"

"Well, it's no good skirmishing. Let's call it by its proper name--your
forgery. Those two checks you cashed at the bank, originally for two and
five dollars. I daresay you thought that your grandfather never looked at
his pass-book. You were mistaken. And what a confounded fool you must
have been to think that two amounts of such magnitude as two thousand and
five thousand dollars could be overlooked."

Dick's lower jaw had dropped a little, and he looked at the colonel in
blank surprise, yet with more listlessness than would a man in rude
health when amazed. The colonel misread the signs, and saw only the
astonishment of guilt unmasked.

"Your mother got the checks for you: but you ad