My situation was uncanny.  In this crowded assemblage in front of me, whispering, talking, laughing beneath the blare of the band, not one, save Betty, had a suspicion of the tragedy.  At times they seemed to melt into a shadow-mass of dreamland ....  Time crawled on very slowly.  Anxious forebodings oppressed me.  Had Sir Anthony’s valiancy stood the test?  Had he been able to shake hands with his daughter’s betrayer?  Had he broken down during the drive side by side with him, amid the hooraying of the townsfolk?  And Gedge?  Had he found some madman’s means of proclaiming the scandal aloud?  Every nerve in my body was strained.  Marigold, in his uniform and medals and patch and grey service cap plugged over his black wig, stood sentry by the side of the platform next my chair.  All of a sudden he pulled out of his side pocket a phial of red liqueur in a medicine glass.  He poured out the dose and handed it to me. turned on him wrathfully.

“What the dickens is that?”

“Dr. Cliffe’s orders, sir.”

“When did he order it?”

“When I told him what you looked like after interviewing Mister Daniel Gedge.  And he said, if you was to look like that again I was to give you this.  So I’m giving it to you, sir.”

There was no arguing with Marigold in front of a thousand people.  I swallowed the stuff quickly.  He put the phial and glass back in his pocket and resumed his wooden sentry attitude by my chair.  I must own to feeling better for the draught.  But, thought I, if the strain of the situation is so great for me, what must it be for Sir Anthony?

Presently the muffled sounds of outside cheering penetrated the hall.  The band stopped abruptly, to begin again with “See the Conquering Hero Comes” when the civic procession appeared through the great doors.  There was little Sir Anthony in his robes, grave and imposing, and beside him Mrs. Boyce, flushed, bright-eyed, and tearful.  Then came Lady Fenimore with Boyce, black-spectacled, soldierly, bull-necked, his little bronze cross conspicuous among the medals on his breast, his elbow gripped by a weatherbeaten young soldier, one of his captains, as I learned afterwards, home on leave, who had claimed the privilege of guiding his blind footsteps.  And behind came the Aldermen and the Councillors, and the General and his staff, and the Lord Lieutenant and Lady Laleham and the other members of the Reception Committee.  The cheering drowned the strains of the “Conquering Hero.”  Places were taken on the platform.  To the right of the Mayor sat Boyce, to the left his mother.  On the table in front were set scrolls and caskets.  You see, we had arranged that Mrs. Boyce should have an address and a casket all to herself.  The gallery soon was picturesquely filled with the nurses, and the fire-brigade, bright-helmeted, was massed in the doorway.