'It was so kind of you, Captain Goring,' said Miss Cheyne, after a pause, 'to invite down papa to dine at your mess at Aldershot.'
'Not at all. Dalton, Jerry Wilmot, and all the other fellows were most glad to see the old gentleman. I only fear that he thought us rather a noisy lot.'
'It delighted him—we live but a dull life at Chilcote.'
'And you have had two brothers in the service, Mrs. Trelawney told me?' resumed Goring, by no means anxious to let the conversation drop, or his companion begin to think of friends who might be looking for her.
'Yes—two, much older than I, however—poor Ranald and golden-haired Ellon.'
'What a curious name!'
'It is a place in Aberdeenshire where much of papa's property once lay. Ranald died of fever, and was buried in the lonely jungle near the Jumna.'
'Illness there does its work quickly—four and twenty hours will see the beginning and the end, and the green turf covering all. I have seen much of it in my time, Miss Cheyne—often buried the dead with my own hands, by Jove!'
'How sad to die as my poor brother did—so far away,' said the girl, her soft voice breaking a little. 'We have a saying in Scotland, "May you die among your kindred."'
'In the service one's comrades become one's kindred—we are all brother soldiers.'