Mr. Sabin was thoughtful for several moments, then he took out his case and lit a cigarette. He watched the blue smoke floating away over the ship’s side, and looked no more at the woman at his elbow.
“If you decide,” he said quietly, “to settle in America, you must not allow yourself to forget that I am very much your debtor. I——”
“Your friendship,” she interrupted, “I shall be very glad to have. We may perhaps help one another to feel less lonely.”
Mr. Sabin gently shook his head.
“I had a friend of your sex once,” he said. “I shall—forgive me—never have another.”
“Is she dead?”
“If she is dead, it is I who have killed her. I sacrificed her to my ambition. We parted, and for months—for years—I scarcely thought of her, and now the day of retribution has come. I think of her, but it is in vain. Great barriers have rolled between us since those days, but she was my first friend, and she will be my only one.”
There was a long silence. Mr. Sabin’s eyes were fixed steadily seawards. A flood of recollections had suddenly taken possession of him. When at last he looked round, the chair by his side was vacant.