Months passed, and I heard nothing about Paul Edgecumbe, and if the truth must be told, owing to the multifarious duties which pressed upon me at that time, I almost forgot him. But not altogether. Little as I knew of him, his personality had impressed itself upon me, while the remembrance of that wild flash in his eyes as he came on to the platform in Plymouth, and declared that he should join the Army, was not easily forgotten.
One day, about three months after our meeting, I was lunching with Colonel Gray in Exeter, when Sir Roger Granville, who was chairman of the meeting at which Edgecumbe had enlisted, joined us.
'I have often thought about that fellow who joined up at Plymouth,
Luscombe,' he said. 'Have you ever heard any more about him?'
I shook my head. 'I've tried to follow him up, too. The fellow has had a curious history.' Whereupon I told Sir Roger what I knew about him.
'Quite a romance,' laughed Colonel Gray. 'It would be interesting to know what becomes of him.'
'I wonder who and what he is?' mused Sir Roger.
'Anything might happen to a fellow like that. He may be a peer or a pauper; he may be married or single, and there may be all sorts of interesting developments.'
He grew quite eloquent, I remember, as to the poor fellow's possible future, and would not listen to Colonel Gray's suggestions that probably everything would turn out in the most prosaic fashion.
About five o'clock that evening our train arrived at a little roadside station, where Sir Roger Granville's motor-car awaited us. It was a beautiful day in early summer, and the whole countryside was lovely.
'No wonder you Devonshire people are proud of your county,' I said, as the car swept along a winding country lane.