He rose as he saw me--a short, crop-haired, clean-shaven, ruddy, jockey-faced man of fifty-five, the corners of his thin lips, usually curled up in a cheery smile, now piteously drawn down, and his bright little eyes now dim like those of a dead bird.

She, buxom, dark, without a grey hair in her head, a fine woman defying her years, buried her face in her hands and sobbed afresh.
"It's good of you to come, old man," said Sir Anthony, "but you're in it with us." He handed me a telegram.

I knew, before reading it, what message it contained.

I had known, all along, but dared not confess it to myself.
"I deeply regret to inform you that your son, Lieutenant Oswald Fenimore, was killed in action yesterday while leading his men with the utmost gallantry." I had known him since he was a child.

By reason of my wife's kinship, I was "Uncle Duncan." He was just one and twenty, but a couple of years out of Sandhurst.