learer. They _must_
grow clearer! You for one believe Eagle's word, don't you, Tony? You
believe it was Major Vandyke's orderly who came to him?"

As I asked this question, I stared through the twilight into Tony's
face, trying to read it even as he tried not to let it be read. He
looked wretchedly uneasy, and rather obstinate. "I can't say I'm sure of
that," he replied. "I'm sure some one came to him, and I'm sure March
_thought_ it was Vandyke's orderly. That's as far as I can go."

"Even when I've told you that I know there's a motive for Major
Vandyke's wanting to injure him, ruin him in his career if he can?"

"You seem to think Vandyke's a regular sort of villain out of
melodrama," said Tony, with an uncomfortable laugh. "I guess you don't
know men very well yet, Peggy--except in novels and plays--when it comes
down to bedrock. They're not much like that in real life, as far as I've
ever seen. They never go round plotting to ruin other chaps' careers,
even when they don't happen to get along very well with 'em."

"_You're_ not so very old. You haven't had much more experience of life
than I have," I taunted him.

Tony laughed. "Haven't I? That's all you know. You're a child, a little
baby-child, compared to me. I may be young, but anyhow, I'm a man, and
I've lived among men since I left West Point two years ago--even if you
don't count cadets as men. Vandyke's no angel, and he and March have
been doing a bit of the cat-and-dog act in a quiet way lately. But it's
pretty far-fetched to accuse Vandyke of hatching up a plot to wipe March
off the map, especially when it meant risking his own life and
sacrificing his orderly, who was devoted to him--a fellow he valued a
whole lot----"

"Ah!" I broke in. "So the orderly was 'devoted to him!' I wonder if the
court-martial will remember that fact for what it's worth?"

"For what it's worth, yes. I guess it can be trusted to do just that.
But what there is will be likely to tell in Vandyke's favour, I guess,
not against him. Johnson had good reasons for being devoted to the
major. The chap got consumption, and was in a bad way--would have had to
say good-bye to an army life--if Vandyke hadn't paid for his cure in one
of the best sanatoria in America, and used influence to keep his job
open for him, too. Nothing very black in that record, eh?"

"Major Vandyke's the kind of person to pay high for anything he really
wants himself," I said. "He must have badly wanted th