though we cannot prove it, that your
grandfather Peter was married previously to his marriage with Lady
Alicia Staunton, that your father James was the real Ravenshoe, while
poor Cuthbert and William--"

"Cuthbert! I will hide again. I will never displace Cuthbert, mind you."

"Cuthbert is dead. He was drowned bathing last August."

Charles broke down, and cried like a child. When he was quiet, he asked
after William.

"He is very well, as he deserves to be. He gave up everything to hunt
you through the world and bring you back. Now, my dear old boy, do
satisfy my curiosity. What regiment did you enlist in?"

"In the 140th."

He paused, hid his face in his hands, and then his speech became rapid
and incoherent.

"At Devna we got wood-pigeons, and I rode the Roucan-nosed bay, and he
carried me through it capitally. I ask your pardon, sir, but I am only a
poor discharged trooper. I would not beg, sir, if I could help it, but
pain and hunger are hard things to bear, sir!"

"Charles--Charles! Don't you know me?"

"That is my name, sir. That is what they used to call me. I am no common
beggar, sir. I was a gentleman once, sir, and rode a-horseback. I was in
the light cavalry charge at Balaclava. An angry business. They shouldn't
get good fellows to fight together like that--"

The next morning, old Lady Ascot, William, Mary, and John Marston were
round his bed listening to his half-uttered, delirious babble. The
anxious question was put to the greatest of the doctors present. "My
dear Dr. B----, will he die?"

"Well, yes," said the doctor. "I would sooner say 'Yes' than 'No'--the
chances are so heavy against him. You must really prepare for the
worst."

_IV.--A Life-Long Shadow_

Of course, he did not die--I need not tell you that. The doctors pulled
him through. And when he was better the doctors removed the splinters of
bone from his arm. He did not talk much in this happy quiet time.
William and Lady Ascot were with him all day. William, dear fellow, used
to sit on a footstool and read the "Times" to him.

Lord Welter (now Lord Ascot, on the death of his father) came to see
Charles one day, and something he said made Charles ask if Adelaide was
dead.

"Tell me something," said Lord Ascot. "Have you any love left for her
yet?"

"Not one spark," said Charles. "If I ever am a man again, I shall ask
Mary Corby to marry me. I ought to have done so sooner, perhaps. But I
love your wife, Welter, in a wa