Swann and Hardy MacLean sometimes drop in at the Armory on Saturday
nights. Captain Thesel is chasing Mrs. Clemhorn now. They're always
together.... Daren, did he ever have it in for you?"

"He never liked me. We never got along here in Middleville. And
naturally in the service when he was a captain and I only a
private--we didn't get along any better."

"Well, I've heard Captain Thesel was to blame for--for what was said
about you last summer when he came home."

"And what was that, Lorna?" queried Lane, curiously puzzled at her,
and darkly conscious of the ill omen that had preceded him home.

"You'll not hear it from me," declared Lorna, spiritedly. "But that
_Croix de Guerre_ doesn't agree with it, I'll tell the world."

A little frown puckered her smooth brow and there was a gleam in her
eye.

"Seems to me I heard some of the kids talking last summer," she mused,
ponderingly. "Vane Thesel was stuck on Mel Iden and Dot Dalrymple both
before the war. Dot handed him a lemon. He's still trying to rush Dot,
and the gossip is he'd go after Mel even now on the sly, if she'd
stand for it."

"Why on the sly?" inquired Lane. "Before I left home Mel Iden was
about the prettiest and most popular girl in Middleville. Her people
were poor, and ordinary, perhaps, but she was the equal of any one."