"I am given to understand, gentlemen," he said slowly, "that his grace the Duke of Leicester was about to propose my health on your behalf. I rise to prevent this for two reasons. First, because to a dying man such a toast could only be a mockery; the second reason will be sufficiently apparent when I have said what I have to say to you."
Every one was stupefied. Had their host suddenly gone mad, or had those empty bottles of Heidseck which had just been removed from his end of the table anything to do with it? Several murmurs for an explanation arose.
"I had forgotten for the moment," Sir Allan continued, "that none of you are yet aware of what I have only known myself during the last few days. I am suffering from acute heart disease, which may terminate fatally at any moment."
A sudden awed gloom fell upon the party. Cigars were put down, and shocked glances exchanged. A murmur of condolence arose, but Sir Allan checked it with a little gesture.
"I need scarcely say that I did not ask you to meet me here this evening to tell you this," he continued. "My object is a different one. I have a confession to make."
The general bewilderment increased. The air of festivity was replaced by a dull restrained silence. Could it be that their host's illness had affected his brain? A painful impression to that effect had passed into the minds of more than one of them.
"You will say, perhaps," Sir Allan continued, speaking very slowly, and with a certain difficulty in his articulation, which did not, however, prevent every word from being distinctly audible, "that I am choosing a strange time and place for making a personal statement. But I see amongst those who have done me the honor of becoming my guests to-night, men whom I should wish to know the whole truth from my own lips—I refer more particularly to you, Sir Philip Roden—and to-night is my last opportunity, for to-morrow all London will know my story, and I shall be banned forever from all converse and intercourse with my fellow-men.
"Very few words will tell my story. Most of you will remember that I came into my title and fortune late in life. My youth was spent in comparative poverty abroad, sometimes practicing my profession, sometimes living merely as a student and an experimenting scientist. In my thirtieth year I married a woman of good family, with whom I was very much in love, so much so that in order to win her I forged a letter from the man whom she would otherwise have married, and obtained her consent in a fit of indignation at his supposed infidelity. That man, gentleman, was Sir Geoffrey Kynaston."
There was a subdued murmur of astonishment. Every one's interest was suddenly redoubled. Sir Allan proceeded, standing at the head of the table, motionless as a statue, but with a strange look in his white face.
"In every possible way I failed in my duty as a husband toward my wife. She was light-hearted, fond of change, gayety, travel. I shut her up in a quiet, old-fashioned town while I pursued my studies, and expected her to content herself with absolute solitude. For years I crushed the life out of her by withdrawing every interest and every amusement from her life. We had one child only, a son.