Before the grief of the man, mighty in its silence, my whole being was humbled. I knew my love was not so great as his. It grew in my eyes a pale and feeble thing; and I felt worthless in the presence of her dead, whom alive I had loved with peaceful gladness. Elsie belonged to Turkey, and he had lost her, and his heart was breaking. I threw my arms round him, and wept for him, not for myself. It was thus I ceased to be a boy.
Here, therefore, my story ends. Before I returned to the university, Turkey had enlisted and left the place.
My father’s half-prophecy concerning him is now fulfilled. He is a general. I will not tell his name. For some reason or other he had taken his mother’s, and by that he is well known. I have never seen him, or heard from him, since he left my father’s service; but I am confident that if ever we meet, it will be as old and true friends.