What could it mean! Neither word nor glance had passed between us since we left England on board the same ship. I followed the man with beating heart.
The vision of a man physically weak, who, after a mortal struggle with some fiendish sin, has cast it from him and come out of the fight dying but triumphant with a spiritual joy; it seemed to me that this was what I saw when I stood face to face with my Uncle Rupert. Ghastly pale, but firm, with deep lines suddenly engraven across his forehead, but with the light of a great, calm resolution in his eyes, he stood before me, and I trembled, for strong and clear the conviction of the truth flashed upon me. The day for which I had longed with such a sickening desire had come.
"Hugh," he said, quietly, "to-night is my last on earth. People may scoff at presentiments who never feel them. Like a still whisper from another world I have heard the truth. In to-morrow's fight I shall die!"
I would have spoken, but it was impossible. The words stuck in my throat.
"One word about this sin of mine, Hugh," he went on in a strange, calm tone. "It was done in a mad impulse of jealousy, in a moment of madness which a lifetime of misery has not expiated. Every one knows that I have been an unhappy man. Success and fame have only been glow-worms leading me on into a marsh of discontent. With a guilty conscience no man on earth can be happy!"
He took up a roll of papers from a table by his side, and summoned his servant.
"Greasely, go to General Fielding's tent and tell him I am ready."
I stood there still in silence. My uncle sank into a low chair and half covered his face. In less than a minute the opening to the tent was lifted, and our commander-in-chief, followed by a younger officer, entered.
"Colonel Devereux," he said, kindly but promptly, "in accordance with my promise I am here and I have brought Captain Luxton. I can spare you five minutes."
Like a gaunt spectre my uncle came out from the shades of the tent, and his sad, weary tone moved even my pity.