Randolph's eyes for one moment rested upon her slim graceful figure as she stood before him. Surely, he thought, those fringed grey eyes that looked with a sunny calm into his could be trusted! And then he saw them droop before his gaze, and was not sure whether it was only his imagination that made him think he saw a glistening drop hanging on the tip of those dark curled lashes. He went, and Sidney watched him go with a strange sinking of heart. "I feel so sorry for him," she said, turning to her father; "he is conscious of his integrity and clean hands; but has always been abused and misunderstood and deceived by those whom he trusted most." "Well, you seem to know a lot about him," said her father; "but Neville will make his way. He is a rising man, and if he gets this billet, he'll be the right man in the right corner." "Monnie has told me a good deal about him," said Sidney, with a wistful look in her eyes. "He is not a happy man, I am afraid; and yet, he deserves to be. I wish he were not going out to such desolation." "It's time some right-minded man tackled that job," the Admiral said. "I happen to know a good bit about that place. We coasted round it once. There is only a handful of Europeans, and they say English lads sent out there either die in five years' time, or come back hopeless drunkards. They go to pieces; climate, isolation, and drink are too much for them. But they've had bad administrators; it's a blot on our Empire. Neville will remedy that." "I wish he had never left the House," said Sidney warmly. "He will be wasted out there. We want strong men at home in the present state of affairs." "We want them in all quarters of the globe," said the Admiral. And his daughter said no more. Randolph did not go to bed very early that night; when he got back, he sat up with Monica over a little log fire, the first she had had; but the rain was heavy. And though she had no idea how much he had been exposed to it, she expected that he would have a wet walk home. She and he were very good friends, and she was genuinely sorry that he was leaving her the following day. "You have done me a lot of good," she said to him. "I get into a rut of my own, and want to be shaken out of it. But dear though Aunt Dannie is, she is not a conversationalist, and we think so very differently that we agree to go our own ways. You make me see that my ways are not infallible; and your presence here has been good for Chuckles. Oh, Randolph, do you think I shall make a good man of him? I get so anxious. Sometimes I think I am too severe; sometimes overindulgent. And it is such a loss for a boy to have no father!"