But when it was found that, so far
from any coming in, there were many going out, and that Natzie's
father and brother had already gone, Byrne's stout heart sank. The
message came by wire from the agency not long after the return of the
funeral party, and while the evening was yet young. He sent at once
for Wren, and, seated on the major's front piazza, with an orderly
hovering just out of earshot, and with many an eye anxiously watching
them along the row, the two veterans were holding earnest conference.
Major Plume was at the bedside of his wife, so said Graham when he
came down about eight. Mrs. Plume, he continued, was at least no
worse, but very nervous. Then he took himself back to the hospital.
Another topic of talk along the line was Blakely's watch and its
strange recovery, and many were the efforts to learn what Blakely
himself had to say about it. The officers, nearly all of them, of
course, had been at intervals to see Blakely and inquire if there were
not something that they could do, this being the conventional and
proper thing, and they who talked with him, with hardly an exception,
led up to the matter of the watch and wished to know how he accounted
for its being there on the post of No. 5. It was observed that, upon
this topic and the stabbing of Private Mullins, Mr.
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