‘I will, Hercules, or Herbert as you ought by rights to be called. It is a hard matter to tell you all the tale, for there is shame and sorrow in it enough, and that for both you and me.
‘I must begin at the beginning. Years, years ago when I was a bit of a girl in my father’s house, I and my twin sister Annie—whom I loved dearly, as the apple of my eye—father lived at Newark-on-Trent; he was a small tradesman, but well enough to do. Mother died when we were quite chicks, and we grew up to have things much our own way. Annie was a real beauty, and had dozens of lads after her always, but she never fancied none of them. At last luck sent a recruiting party of the 12th Lancers to Newark. One of them was a young corporal, as proper a chap as ever took the shilling, fair spoken, well educated, and superior to the common run. He soon got courting our Annie, and he was the first she favoured. Father did not like it—not a bit. He hated soldiers, and was very rough about Corporal Smith. Annie and he had high words over it, and one day she was not to be found.
‘The recruiters had left the town too.
‘I won’t tell you what grief there was at home. Father was like a madman, and I was little better. He tried hard to get her back. He went miles—to the other end of England—after the regiment, but he never caught them up. He was too late. The regiment had been ordered off to the Cape of Good Hope. Through the rector, father wrote to the War Office, inquiring after Corporal Smith and his wife. The answer came months later, to say that the corporal was alive and well, but that he had no wife—at least no one according to the regimental books.
‘Father never held up his head after that, and within the year he died. I was nearly heart-broken too; but I was young, and I bore up better. As I was all alone in the world, and had the shop on my hands, I took a husband, who offered just then—Michael Conlan, a clerk in a maltster’s at Newark. He was a kindly soul, not over strong, but he helped me in the business, and we managed to get along.
‘One night Annie returned—not alone—she had a child with her, her own, a few months old only, and the two came, seeking shelter and rest. It was as I thought at first—the old story—betrayed, neglected, left.’
‘But you took her in?’ Herbert asked, eagerly.
‘Of course. Neither Michael nor myself asked any questions; our duty was plain, and it was one of love besides for me. All I know is what Annie herself told me, and that was not much. The corporal, it seems, belonged really to a higher station in life. He had quarrelled with his friends and left his home, and wanted never to see or hear of them again. But when Annie’s child was born—’