"It's true. You were good enough to hint you might miss me down here. But for how long? A month hence your remembrance of me will be vague. A few years hence you may take up a paper and read of the death by fever or some such epidemic of a certain Randolph Neville. And you will say to your father, 'Wasn't that the man who visited Monnie once? I seem to remember the name.'"
Very lightly Sidney laid her hand on his arm, and the touch thrilled Randolph, though he was furious to have to acknowledge it to himself.
"Have I deserved such a speech?"
"I don't know why I'm talking of myself at all," said Randolph gruffly; "it isn't my way."
"Life will be better to you than you think. It's a good world to live in. Don't doubt everything and everybody."
"Ah, you have as yet had no disillusions!"
Then, aghast, he recollected; and her tense cry once more came to his ears: "Teach me to forget! Teach me to forget!"
"I have had a few," said Sidney very quietly; "but the world is big, and we are not meant to grow bitter in it."
Randolph caught his breath.
Then through the darkness came a shout, and the next moment the Admiral's groom reined up his horse by them.