ng Doe, for he was
saying:

"Somehow I could forgive everything to those fellows you've been
telling us about, but I'm blowed if I can forgive myself
everything."

And here Monty, with the utmost naturalness, as though so deep a
question flowed necessarily from what had gone before, asked:

"Have you _everything_ to be forgiven?"

It is wonderful the questions that will be asked and the answers
that will be given under the stars.

Doe looked out over the water, and moved his right foot to and fro.
Then he drew his knee up and clasped it with both hands.

"Everything," he said, rather softly.

And, when I heard him say that, I felt I was letting him take blame
that I ought to share with him. So I added simply:

"It's the same with both of us."

Monty held his peace, but his eyes glistened in the starlight. I
think he was happy that we two boys had been drawn to him, as
inevitably as needles to a magnet. At last he said:

"I suppose we ought to turn in now. But promise me you'll continue
this talk to-morrow, if it's another lovely night like this."

"Surely," assented Doe, as we arose and folded up the chairs.

"I hope when we wake we shan't be out at sea," suggested I, "for I
want to watch old England receding into the distance."

Monty looked at me and smiled.

"Rupert," he said, and it was like him to use my Christian name
without as much as a "by your leave" within the first dozen hours of
our acquaintance, "you're one of them."

"One of whom?"

"One of those to whom I could forgive everything. You both are. Good
night, Rupert. Good night, Edgar."

CHAPTER III

"C. OF E., NOW AND ALWAYS"

Sec.1

Awaking at 5.30 the next morning, I heard a noise as of the anchor's
cable being hauled in. The engines, too, were throbbing, and
overhead there were rattling and movement. I tumbled Doe out of his
top bunk, telling him to get up and see the last of England.
Slipping a British warm over my blue silk pyjamas--mother always
made me wear pale blue--I went on deck. Doe covered his pink-striped
pyjamas with a grey silk kimono embroidered with flowers--the chance
of wearing which garment reconciled him to this cold and early
rising--and followed me sleepily. In a minute we were leaning over
the deck-rails, and watching the sea, as it raced past the ship's
hull.

Our _Rangoon_ was really off now. As we left Devonport, two devilish
little destroyers gave us fifty in the hundred, caught us up, and