ght of him. He was
sitting only a few rows back from the platform, close to a pillar, and
his eyes, I thought, had a vacant stare. When my name was mentioned,
however, and I stood by the table on the platform, waiting for the
applause which is usual on such an occasion to die down, the vacant
look had gone. He was eager, alert, attentive.

Usually I am not a ready speaker, but that night my work seemed easy.
After I had sketched the story of the events which led to the war, the
atmosphere became electric, and the cause I had espoused gripped me as
never before, and presently, when I came to the application of the
story I had told, and of our duty as a nation which pretended to stand
for honour and truth, and Christianity, my heart grew hot, and the
meeting became wild with enthusiasm.

Just as I was closing, I looked toward the pillar by which Paul
Edgecumbe sat, and his face had become so changed that I scarcely knew
him. There were no evidences of the drawn, parchment-like skin;
instead, his cheeks were flushed, and looked youthful. His eyes were
no longer wistful and sad, but burned like coals of fire. He was like
a man consumed by a great passion. If he had forgotten the past, the
present, at all events, was vividly revealed to him.

Before I sat down, I appealed for volunteers. I asked the young men,
who believed in the sacredness of promises, in the honour of life, in
the sanctity of women, to come on to the platform, and to give in their
names as soldiers of the King.

There was no applause, a kind of hush rested on the audience; but for
more than a minute no one came forward. Then I saw Paul Edgecumbe make
his way from behind the pillar, and come towards the platform, the
people cheering as he did so. He climbed the platform steps, and
walked straight toward the chairman, who looked at him curiously.

'Will you take me, sir?' he said, and his voice rang out clearly among
the now hushed audience.

'You wish to join, do you?'

'Join!' he said passionately, 'how can a man, who is a man, do anything
else?'

What I have related describes how I first met Paul Edgecumbe, and how
he joined the Army. At least a hundred other volunteers came forward
that night, but I paid little attention to them. The man whose history
was unknown to me, and whose life-story was unknown even to himself,
had laid a strong hand upon me.

As I look back on that night now, and as I remember what has since
taken place,