birth. Not, mind you,
that I like or esteem him one iota the less, for what you tell me.
Indeed, on the contrary; for there is all the more merit in his
having made his way, alone. Still, you astonish me.

"They tell me," he said, with a smile, "that he is wonderfully like
me but, strangely enough, he reminds me rather of my wife. You
remember her, Shepherd? For you were stationed at Meerut, at the
time I married her there."

Colonel Shepherd nodded and, for a few minutes, the two friends sat
silent; thinking over the memories which the words had evoked.

"Strange, is it not," Colonel Ripon went on, arousing himself,
"that the child of some pauper parents should have a resemblance,
however distant, to me and my wife?"

"Curiously enough," Colonel Shepherd said, "the boy was not born of
pauper parents. He was left at the door of the workhouse, at Ely,
by a tramp; whose body was found, next morning, in one of the
ditches. It was a stormy night; and she had, no doubt, lost her way
after leaving the child. That was why they called him William Gale.

"Why, what is the matter, Ripon? Good heavens, are you ill?"

Colonel Shepherd's surprise was natural. The old officer sat rigid
in his chair, with his eyes open and staring at his friend; and
yet, apparently, without seeing him. The color in his face had
faded away and, even through the deep bronze of the Indian sun, its
pallor was visible.

Colonel Shepherd rose in great alarm, and was about to call for
assistance when his friend, with a slight motion of his hand,
motioned to him to abstain.

"How old is he?" came presently, in a strange tone, from his lips.

"How old is who?" Colonel Shepherd asked, in surprise. "Oh, you
mean Gale! He is not nineteen yet, though he looks four or five
years older. He was under seventeen, when he enlisted; and I rather
strained a point to get him in, by hinting that, when he was asked
his age, he had better say under nineteen. So he was entered as
eighteen, but I know he was more than a year younger than that.

"But what has that to do with it, my dear old friend? What is the
matter with you?"

"I believe, Shepherd," Colonel Ripon said solemnly, "that he is my
son."

"Your son!" his comrade exclaimed, astonished.

"Yes, I believe he is my son."

"But how on earth can that be?" his friend asked. "Are you sure
that you know what you are saying? Is your head quite clear, old
friend?"

"My head is clear enough," the colonel rep