At length Arthur said, in a low voice, "Dead ?" "Dead." As Lawrence Newt spoke the word the air far off and near seemed to him to ring again with that pervasive murmur, sad, soft, infinitely tender, "Good-by, Mr.Newt, good-by!" But his eye was calm and his face cheerful.
"Arthur, sit down." The young man seated himself, and the older one drawing a chair to the window, they sat with their backs to the outer office and looked upon the ships.
"I am older than you, Arthur, and I am your friend.

What I am going to say to you I have no right to say, except in your entire friendship." The young man's eyes glistened.
"Go on," he said.
"When I first knew you I knew that you loved Hope Wayne." A flush deepened upon Arthur's face, and his fingers played idly upon the arm of the chair.
"I hoped that Hope Wayne would love you.

I was sure that she would.

It never occurred to me that she could--could--" Arthur turned and looked at him.
"Could love any body else," said Lawrence Newt, as his eyes wandered dreamily among the vessels, as if the canvas were the wings of his memory sailing far away.
"Suddenly, without the least suspicion on my part, I discovered that she did love somebody else." "Yes," said Arthur, "so did I." "What could I do ?" said the other, still abstractedly gazing; "for I loved her." "You loved her ?" cried Arthur Merlin, so suddenly and loud that Thomas Tray looked up from his great red Russia book and turned his head toward the inner office.
"Certainly I loved her," replied Lawrence Newt, calmly, and with tender sweetness; "and I had a right to, for I loved her mother.

Could I have had my way Hope Wayne's mother would have been my wife." Arthur Merlin stole a glance at the face of his companion.
"I was a child and she was a child--a boy and a girl.