Angus rose hastily, and laid his hand on my arm.
“Speak out, Cary! What do I not know?”
“Angus, Colonel Keith bought your life with his own.”
In all my life I never saw a man’s face change as the face of Angus Drummond changed then. It was plainly to be read there that he had never for a moment understood at what cost he had been purchased. A low moan of intense sorrow broke from him, and he hid his face upon the table.
“I think he paid the price very willingly, Angus,” I said, softly. “And he sent Annas a last message for you—he bade you, to the utmost of what your opportunities might be, to be to God and man what he hoped to have been.”
“O Duncan, Duncan!” came in anguish from the white lips. “And I never knew—I never thought—”
Ah, it was so like Angus, “never to think.”
He lifted his head at last, with the light of a settled purpose shining in his eyes.
“To man I can never be what he would have been. I am a proscribed fugitive. You harbour me at a risk even now. But to God! Cary, I have been a rebel: but I never was a deserter from that service. God helping me, I will enlist now. If my worthless life have cost the most precious life in Scotland, it shall not have been given in vain.”
“There was Another who gave His life for you, Angus,” I could not help saying.