He was muttering on vacantly, as people do who are very weak. Mrs. Fane's kind heart ached for his lonely woebegone state. She took his hand in hers—how many sick hands had she clasped in her healing palm—but poor Smith was beyond her help.
'I see a young fellow that died beside me at the battle of the Alma,' said Smith, 'and when that young lady came up, as you might be, it brought it all back as it might be now. He was a gentleman, they said; he weren't half a bad chap.'
'Who are you speaking of?' said Mrs. Fane, not quite following.
'They called him George—George Vance,' said the man; 'but that were not his name no more than Smith is mine.'
'I have heard of a man of that name who was wounded at the Alma; I did not know that he had died there,' said Mrs. Fane. Her hand began to tremble a little, but she spoke very quietly.
Smith hesitated for a minute, then he looked up into the clear constraining eyes that seemed to him to be expecting his answer. 'It ain't no odds to me now,' he said, hoarsely, whether I speak the tru—uth or not; you're a lady, and will keep the money safe for my poor lad. Captain Henley he offered a matter o' twenty pound if we found poor Vance alive. He were a free-handed chap were poor Vance. We know'd he would not grudge the money.... And when the Roosians shot him, poor fellow, it wasn't no odds to him.
Mrs. Fane looking round saw the chaplain passing, and she whispered to the old attendant to bring him to her.
'And so you said that you had found him alive, I suppose?' said Mrs. Fane, quickly guessing at the truth.
'Well, mum, you ain't far wrong,' said Smith, looking at his thin brown fingers. 'There was another chap of our corps died on the way to the ships. It were a long way to carry them down to the shore: we changed their names. We didn't think we had done no great harm; for twenty pound is twenty pound; but I have heard as how a fortune was lost thro' it all—a poor chap like me has no fortune to lose.'
'It was the young lady you saw who lost her fortune,' said Mrs. Fane, controlling herself, and trying to hide her agitation. 'You did her great injury, you see, though you did not mean it. But you can repair this wrong. I think you will like to do so,' she said, 'and—and—we shall all be very much obliged to you.' 'Mr. Morgan,' Mrs. Fane continued, turning to the chaplain, who had come up to the bedside, 'here is a poor fellow who wishes to do us a service, and to make a statement, and I want you to take it down.' She had writing materials in her basket. She often wrote the sick people's letters for them.