Herne was silent for a moment. Then:
"You would be wiser to forget him," he said. "He will never come back."
"I shall never forget him," said Betty almost fiercely.
He looked at her gravely.
"You mean to waste the rest of your life waiting for him?" he asked.
Her hands gripped each other suddenly.
"You call it waste?" she said.
"It is waste," he made answer, "sheer, damnable waste. The boy was mad enough to sacrifice his own career—everything that he had—but it is downright infernal that you should be sacrificed too. Why should you pay the penalty for his madness? He was probably killed long ago, and even if not—even if he lived and came back—you would probably ask yourself if you had ever met him before."
"Oh, no!" Betty said. "No!"
She turned and looked out to the water that gleamed so peacefully in the moonlight.