He had told me all that there was to tell, and then I ventured to speak to him of the future. I had hoped that he would have settled down in England somewhere with Marian and me, but it was a hope which he very soon dispelled. "Your mother's death," he said, in a low tone when I first began to hint at my desire, "has left me free. I shall look to you to make a home for Marian, and I shall make over to you for that purpose three-quarters of my income. For myself I can never live in England. There is one place, and one place only, which I could call home, and there I cannot go. My life has been for a long time too sedentary a one to be pleasing to me. I am a man of action, and I can never forget that I was once a soldier. I must go where there is fighting." His words were a blow to me, and for a moment or two I did not answer him. My heart was too hot for words, full of a burning indignation against the cruel slander which was sapping away his life. Notwithstanding the weary look in his eyes, and his wrinkled brow, he was still the finest-looking man I had ever, or ever have, seen. Handsome after the highest type of the patrician Englishman. He was tall, and though slight, magnificently shaped, with long, firm limbs and stately carriage. His features, though powerful and strongly defined, were delicately carved and of the most refined type, and though his hair and moustache were greyer even than when he had left Devonshire, he was still in the prime of life. There was the _je ne sais quoi_ of a soldier about him, the air of command and military bearing. And yet there was nothing better for him to do with his life than go and throw it away amongst foreigners, fighting in a cause for which he could care nothing, and which glory and patriotism, the highest incentives of the soldier, could never make dear to him. A curse upon that uncle of mine! I would have uttered it out loud, but for fear of raising a storm which I should not be able to quell. So I breathed it to myself, savagely, and none the less emphatically. "Let me go with you, father," I begged, "I am sick of this humdrum life, and I cannot bear to think of you going wandering about the world by yourself; I can fight, and could soon learn the drill." He shook his head--not vigorously, but decisively. "It is good of you to want to come, Hugh," he said, kindly, "but it is quite out of the question. You have your sister to look after, and besides," he added, with a smile, "I do not think my career as a soldier of fortune will be a long one." "Father, don't talk like that!" I cried, passionately. "They say that some time or other truth will always out, and I believe it! I believe that the day will come when your innocence will be made clear!" He shook his head dejectedly, but not without emotion.