"That I will tell you presently," answered Captain George. "May I assume that you were acquainted with Mr. Edmund Fairfax?"
"You may assume what the deuce you like, sir," answered the peppery colonel. "It seems to me that there is a great deal too much assumption about you. But go on. What are you driving at next?"
"The Mr. Edmund Fairfax to whom I allude, was married at Whitehaven to a certain young lady, Miss Pollexfen by name. If I am rightly informed, you were a witness to that marriage. Mr. Fairfax and his wife went abroad. A year later, Mr. Fairfax was unfortunately drowned in one of the Swiss lakes. You were the bearer of the news of his death to his widow, who shortly after that event returned to England. I hope, sir, that you follow me thus far?"
"Oh, I follow you easily enough, never fear!" replied the irascible old soldier. "You tell your tale as glibly as if you had learnt it by heart beforehand. But you have not done yet. When you have come to an end, I may, perhaps, question the truth of your statements in toto."
"From the date of her arrival in England up to the time of her death, which event happened a few weeks ago, Mrs. Fairfax lived in the utmost seclusion--in fact, she lived under an assumed name. But, sir, she had a daughter. That daughter is now grown up, and is acquainted with her mother's story. It is as her advocate that I am here to-day."
"A youthful Daniel come to judgment!" sneered the colonel. "Well, sir, granting for the sake of argument that there may be some slight residuum of truth in what you have just told me--what then? You have something still in the background."
"Simply this, Colonel Lant. Mrs. Fairfax never knew, nor beyond a few questions put to you on a certain occasion did she ever seek to know, anything concerning the antecedents and social position of her husband. When once her husband was lost to her, all minor considerations were regarded with perfect indifference. But as respects Miss Fairfax, the case is very different. Those who have her interests most at heart--that is to say, my uncle, Major Strickland, and another old friend of Mrs. Fairfax, who is associated with him in this matter--are naturally anxious that Miss Fairfax should no longer be left in doubt as to her parentage and proper position in the world. I am their envoy to you. You alone can tell them where and how to look for that which they want to find."
"And so pretty Mrs. Fairfax is dead," said the colonel after a pause. "Ay! ay! each of us must go in turn. I had a narrow squeak myself a few days ago, I can tell you. Sweet Mrs. Fairfax! and dead, you say? Twenty years have gone by since I saw her last; but I have often thought about her, and always as being young and pretty. I never could think of her as touched by Time's finger: as having grey hair, and wrinkles, and all that, you know. For ever sweet and young. I was half in love with her myself, and should have been wholly so had not Fairfax been beforehand with me. But she was far away too good for him, and for me too, for that matter. And now, dead!"
Colonel Lant had wandered so far back into the past that he was near forgetting the presence of Captain Strickland. The latter sat without speaking. The sick man's half-conscious revelations were sufficient to prove that he was on the right track. At length the colonel came back with a sigh and a start to the practical present.
"A daughter, did you not say--a grown-up daughter? Dear me! And in the interests of this daughter you want to know something about the antecedents and history of Ned Fairfax. Well! well! it was a bad piece of business, and some reparation is certainly due."