"Make Mr. Neville change his wet things, dad. Uncle Ted's clothes will fit him. And we shall be ready for dinner in twenty minutes."
The belated dinner was served at half-past ten, and it was a cheerful meal. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Randolph bade Sidney good-bye.
"Shall we never meet again?" she exclaimed, as she laid her hand in his, and felt the emphasis of his words. "I don't like to make friends and lose them so quickly. Won't you be in these parts again before you sail?"
He shook his head.
"If I go, I go next week. Miss Urquhart, I shall be a lonely man out there. Will you write me a line occasionally? May I write to you? Just to keep up our friendship, which I trust we have started."
"I shall like to hear from you how you are getting on, and will certainly answer your letters," responded Sidney gravely.
Randolph's eyes for one moment rested upon her slim graceful figure as she stood before him. Surely, he thought, those fringed grey eyes that looked with a sunny calm into his could be trusted! And then he saw them droop before his gaze, and was not sure whether it was only his imagination that made him think he saw a glistening drop hanging on the tip of those dark curled lashes.
He went, and Sidney watched him go with a strange sinking of heart.
"I feel so sorry for him," she said, turning to her father; "he is conscious of his integrity and clean hands; but has always been abused and misunderstood and deceived by those whom he trusted most."
"Well, you seem to know a lot about him," said her father; "but Neville will make his way. He is a rising man, and if he gets this billet, he'll be the right man in the right corner."