"Are you Sergeant Humphreys?" Edgar asked, putting his hand on the man's shoulder.
The sergeant started in surprise.
"Why, lad, how come you to know all the ins and outs of that story? Ay, I was Sergeant Humphreys, and for aught I know that young fellow who has just passed, whom they call Clinton, is my son."
"No, he is not, sergeant; I am your son!"
The sergeant looked at the young trumpeter in bewilderment, then his expression changed.
"You have got a touch of fever, lad. Come along with me to the hospital; I will report you sick. The sooner you are out of the sun the better."
"I am as sensible as I ever was in my life," Edgar said quietly. "I was brought up by Captain Clinton as his son. I was at Cheltenham with Rupert Clinton, who has just passed us. We believed that we were twins until the day came when a woman came down there and told me the story, and told me that I was her son and yours; then I ran away, and here I am."
"My wife!" the sergeant exclaimed passionately. "I have not seen or heard of her for fifteen years. So she came down and told you that. She is a bad lot, if ever there was one. And so she told you you were my son? You may be, lad, for aught I know; and I should be well content to know that it was so. But what did she come and tell you that for? What game is she up to now? I always knew she was up to some mischief. What was her motive in coming down to tell you that? Just let me know what she said."
"She said she had deliberately changed me as an infant for my good, and she proposed to me to continue the fraud, and offered, if I liked, to swear to Rupert's being her child, so that I might get all the property."
"And that she might share in it!" the sergeant laughed bitterly. "A bold stroke that of Jane Humphreys. And how did she pretend to recognize you as her child more than the other?"