I grunted assent, and for a while he went on to talk about the show; how he and Mouldy were going to lead two rushes simultaneously, and his dispositions for his machine-gun sections and bombing parties, and while he talked his cigar glowed red in the darkness. As I've said, I was rather a long way off in my thoughts and wasn't listening to him properly. "... And we'll light such a candle, Master Ridley, as by God's Grace----" he broke off, soberly. Down in the forecastle a gramophone was humming the refrain of a popular song, and the sound floated up to us on the wind. It was somehow familiar to me, and I connected it with laughter and women's voices.... Somewhere aft a soda-water bottle popped as the cork was drawn. I remembered then. The orchestra had been playing it the day I lunched with Addison at that restaurant and I'd seen Milsom.... The incident had gone clean out of my mind. "By the way," I said, "I forgot till this minute, but something's reminded me; that girl we travelled up with in the train that day--Miss Mayne?" "Yes," said Milsom; "what about her?" "I didn't know you knew her." Milsom had got out of step; he shuffled his feet and picked it up again before replying. "Didn't you?" he said, and glanced sideways at me. "Yes," he went on, after a pause, "we got to know each other rather well. But how did you----" I told him about the luncheon at that restaurant, and how I had seen them. "Soj," I said, "did you ever ask her who that--that fellow was?" Milsom was silent for a moment. "No," he replied presently. "I never asked her what his name was." We walked the length of the bridge before he spoke again. "She told me the story, though; rather a pitiful little tale. She was a governess, it seems. No people: orphan. Very little money, and what there was she gave to an only brother to keep him in the Guards. Father's old regiment, don't you know. Brother was killed and she eventually learned shorthand and took on that job at the Admiralty. Thought she ought to do war work. But it was while she was a governess she met this--er--naval officer, somewhere in the country." "Naval officer, was he?" I interrupted. "Yes, and she--I think she got fond of him.... and she thought he cared for her ... but they had a row.... It sounds as if he was that sort of fellow who would make a mess of it. Anyhow, he mucked up the whole business and went back to sea and never wrote again ... or anything." Milsom pitched the glowing stump of his cigar overboard. "And he'll never have her now." There was a hard note in my companion's voice I'd never heard there before. I reflected. "But," I said, "couldn't you find out his name? If it was only a silly misunderstanding between two kids, we might have helped."