The Doctor and the Major came together to our bungalow, and with them two other officers who happened to be of the party, and who were friends of my father.

One of them was a particular friend of my own.

He was an ensign, a reckless, kind-hearted lad "in his teens," a Mr.Abercrombie, who had good reason to count my father as a friend.
Mr.Abercrombie mingled in some way with my dreams that night, or rather early morning, and when I fairly woke, it was to the end of a discussion betwixt my Ayah, who was crying, and Mr.Abercrombie, in evening dress, whose face bore traces of what looked to me like crying also.

I was hastily clothed, and he took me in his arms.
"Papa wants you, Margery dear," he said; and he carried me quickly down the passages in the dim light of the early summer dawn.
Two or three officers, amongst whom I recognized Major Buller, fell back, as we came in, from the bed to which Mr.Abercrombie carried me.
My father turned his face eagerly towards me, but I shrank away.

That one night of suffering and collapse had changed him so that I did not know him again.