"And the next voyage we slipped back into our usual jog-trot round. Mr. Bloom, that fine flower of professional culture, was replaced by one of our skippers who had lost his license for a year for some highly technical reason. Jack was rather perturbed by the prospect of having a brother-captain under him, but the new chief-officer was temporarily stunned by the blow fate had dealt him and was a good fellow anyhow. Young Siddons, who was able to carry on by the time we sailed, said he was a jolly decent old sort. Young Siddons and I had a good many talks together that voyage. He was in sore need, you know, of somebody to confide in. We all need that when we are in love. It has been my lot, more than once, to be favoured with these confidences. Tactless? Oh, no. As the Evanses said about children, these young hearts _know_. Yes, we talked, and I received fresh light upon the mysteries of passion. As Jack had said, young Siddons was the sort to take it hard. His face grew thinner and there was a new and austere expression in his fine gray eyes. We say easily, oh, the young don't die of love! But don't they? Doesn't the youth we knew die? Don't we discover, presently, that a firmer and more durable and perhaps slightly less lovable character has appeared? So it seems to me. Not that Siddons was less lovable. But the gay and somewhat care-free youth who had laughed so happily on the voyage out when the girl had stopped for a while to chat with him was dead. He had a memory to feed on now, a sombre-sweet reminiscence dashed with the faint bitterness of an inevitable frustration. He took it out of me, so to speak, using me as a confessor, not of sins, but of illusions.