“Were you with him when he died?”

“I was, your ladyship.  These fingers closed his eyes.”

The hand that held the fan began to tremble again.  She remained silent for a few moments, and by a strong effort overmastered her agitation.

“You have some communication which you wish to make to me respecting my dead son?”

“I have, your ladyship.  A communication of a very singular kind.”

“Why has it not been made before now?”

“That your ladyship will learn in the course of what I have to say.  But perhaps you will kindly allow me to tell my story my own way.”

“By all means.  Pray begin:  I am all attention.”

The Sergeant touched his forelock, gave a preliminary cough, fixed his clear grey eye on Lady Chillington, and began his narrative as under:—­

“Your ladyship and miss:  I, John Nicholas, a Staffordshire man born and bred, went out to India twenty-three years ago as lance corporal in the hundred-and-first regiment of foot.  After I had been in India a few months, I got drunk and misbehaved myself, and was reduced to the ranks.  Well, ma’am, Captain Chillington took a fancy to me, thought I was not such a bad dog after all, and got me appointed as his servant.  And a better master no man need ever wish to have—­kind, generous, and a perfect gentleman from top to toe.  I loved him, and would have gone through fire and water to serve him.”

Her ladyship’s fan was trembling again.  “Oblige me with my salts, Miss Hope,” she said.  She pressed them to her nose, and motioned to the Sergeant to proceed.

“When I had been with the Captain a few months,” resumed the old soldier, “he got leave of absence for several weeks, and everybody knew that it was his intention to spend his holiday in a shooting excursion among the hills.  I was to go with him, of course, and the usual troop of native servants; but besides himself there was only one European gentleman in the party, and he was not an Englishman.  He was a Russian, and his name was Platzoff.  He was a gentleman of fortune, and was travelling in India at the time, and had come to my master with letters of introduction.  Well, Captain Chillington just took wonderfully to him, and the two were almost inseparable.  Perhaps it hardly becomes one like me to offer an opinion on such a point; but, knowing what afterwards happened, I must say that I never either liked or trusted that Russian from the day I first set eyes on him.  He seemed to me too double-faced and cunning for an honest English gentleman to have much to do with.  But he had travelled a great deal, and was very good company, which was perhaps the reason why Captain Chillington took so kindly to him.  Be that as it may, however, it was decided that they should go on the hunting excursion together—­not that the Russian was much of a shot, or cared a great deal about hunting, but because, as I heard him say, he liked to see all kinds of life, and tiger-stalking was something quite fresh to him.