“To make short a long story—­we got a fresh Colonel, and were removed to another part of the country; and there, a few weeks later, I was knocked down by fever, and was a long time before I thoroughly recovered my strength.  A year or two later our regiment was ordered back to England, but a day or two before we should have sailed I had a letter telling me that my old sweetheart was dead.  This news seemed to take all care for life out of me, and on the spur of the moment I volunteered into a regiment bound for China, in which country war was just breaking out.  There, and at other places abroad, I stopped till just four months ago, when I was finally discharged, with my pension, and a bullet in my pocket that had been taken out of my skull.  I only landed in England nine days ago, and as soon as it was possible for me to do so, I came to see your ladyship.  And I think that is all.”  The Sergeant’s forefinger went to his forehead again as he brought his narrative to an end.

Lady Chillington kept on fanning herself in silence for a little while after the old soldier had done speaking.  Her features wore the proud, impassive look that they generally put on when before strangers:  in the present case they were no index to the feelings at work underneath.  At length she spoke.

“After the suicide of your Colonel did you mention the supposed robbery of the diamond to anyone else?”

“To no one else, your ladyship.  For several reasons.  I was unaware what steps he might have taken between the time of my telling him and the time of his death to prove or disprove the truth of the story.  In the second place, Rung had disappeared.  I could only tell the story at secondhand.  It had been told me by an eye-witness, but that witness was a native, and the word of a native does not go for much in those parts.  In the third place, the Russian had also disappeared, and had left no trace behind.  What could I do?  Had I told the story to my new Colonel, I should mayhap only have been scouted as a liar or a madman.  Besides, we were every day expecting to be ordered home, and I had made up my mind that I would at once come and see your ladyship.  At that time I had no intention of going to China, and when once I got there it was too late to speak out.  But through all the years I have been away my poor dear master’s last words have lived in my memory.  Many a thousand times have I thought of them both day and night, and prayed that I might live to get back to Old England, if it was only to give your ladyship the message with which I had been charged.”

“But why could you not write to me?” asked Lady Chillington.

“Your ladyship, I am no scholar,” answered the old soldier, with a vivid blush.  “What I have told you to-day in half-an-hour would have taken me years to set down—­in fact, I could never have done it.”

“So be it,” said Lady Chillington.  “My obligation to you is all the greater for bearing in mind for so many years my poor boy’s last message, and for being at so much trouble to deliver it.”  She sighed deeply and rose from her chair.  The Sergeant rose too, thinking that his interview was at an end, but at her ladyship’s request he reseated himself.