Here the Berwen was running with its usual babbling and gurgling through the stones into the sea, the north-west wind was tossing the foam into the air, and the waves came bounding and racing up the yellow sand like children at play; the little sea-crows cawed noisily as they wheeled round the cliffs, and the sea-gulls called to their fellows as they floated over the waves or stood about the wet, shining sands.
"There's beautiful, it is," said Valmai, pushing back her hat and taking long breaths of the sea wind; "only six weeks I have been here and yet I seem to have known it for ever—I suppose because from a baby I used to hear my father talking of this place. It was his old home, and he was always longing to come back."
"Yes," said Cardo, "I can imagine that. I don't think I could ever be thoroughly happy away from here."
"Nor I too, indeed," said Valmai, "now that I know it."
"I hope you will never leave the place—you seem to belong to it somehow; and I hope I may never leave it, at least—at all events—" and he hesitated as he remembered his father's wishes—expressed many times, though at long intervals—that he should go to Australia and visit an uncle who had for many years lived there. The prospect of a voyage to the Antipodes had never been very attractive to Cardo, and latterly the idea had faded from his mind. In the glamour of that golden afternoon in spring, in Valmai's sweet companionship, the thought of parting and leaving his native country was doubly unpleasant to him. She saw the sudden embarrassment, and the flush that spread over his face.
"You are going away?" she said, looking up at him.
There was only inquiry in the tone. Cardo wondered if she would be sorry, and was tempted to make the most of his possible departure.
"I may have to go away," he said, "though I should hate it. I never liked the idea, but now I perfectly dread it. And you," he added, "should you miss me? It is not very lively here, so perhaps even I might be missed a little."
Valmai did not answer; she looked out to the horizon where the blue of the sky joined the blue of the sea, and the white breakers glinted in the sunshine.
"Yes," she said presently, "I will be sorry when you go, and where are you going to? Far away? To England, perhaps?"