My mind was laughing in triumph. My body was no longer weary—it was forgotten and strong again. In all the world there were just she and I. She had tried to escape me, but now the waves jostled us together. She had striven not to see me, but now my face focused all her gaze. She might look away into the smoking crest of the next roller, but her eyes must always come back. Of all live things we had loved or hated, now there remained just she and I. We had been stripped of all our acquirements and thrown back to the primitive basis of existence—a man and a woman fighting for life in chaos. For us all the careful conventions, built up by centuries, were suddenly destroyed. The polite decencies and safeguards of civilization were swept aside. The shame of so many natural things, which had made up the toll of our refinement, was contemptuously blotted out—the architecture of the ages was shattered in an instant. We were thrown back to where the first man and woman started. The only virtue that remained to us was the physical strength by which death might be avoided. The sole distinguishing characteristic between us was the female’s dependence on the male, and the male’s native instinct to protect her, if need be savagely with his life. Over there, a mile away, stood the red comfortable town on the cliff, where all the smug decencies were respected which we had perforce abandoned. Between us and the shore stretched fifty yards of water—a gulf between the finite and the infinite. Over there lay the moment of the present; here in eternity were she and I.
I gazed on her with stern gladness; I had got to her—she was mine. The madness for possession, which had given me strength, was satisfied. Now a fresh motive, still instinctive and primal, urged me on—I must save her. I lifted her arm and placed it across my shoulder, so that I might support her. The great thing was to keep her afloat as long as possible. There was no going back over the path that we had traversed—both tide and current were dead against us. Already the shore was stealing away—we were being carried out to sea.
I remembered, how on that first morning, when I had warned her against bathing from the north beach, she had told me she was a good swimmer. In my all-embracing ignorance of her, I had no means of estimating how much or how little that meant. For myself, barring accidents, I judged I could keep going for two hours.
Vi was weakening. With her free left hand she was still swimming pluckily, but her right hand kept slipping off my shoulder; I had to watch her sharply and lift it back. Her weight became heavier. Her lips were blue and chattering. I noticed that her fingers were spread apart; she had cramp in the palms of her hands. Her body dragged beside me; she was losing control of it. She was no longer kicking out.
To talk, save in monosyllables, was impossible, and then one had to shout. Our ears were stopped up with water; the clash of the wind against the waves was deafening. My one fear for her was that the cramp would spread. If that happened, we would go down together.
I felt her cold lips pressed against my shoulder. As I looked round, she let go of me. “I’m done,” she said.
She went under. I slipped my arm about her and turned over on my back, so that my body floated under her, and she lay across my breast. “You shan’t go,” I panted furiously.
“Let me,” she pleaded.
But I held her. “You shan’t go,” I said.
My anger roused her. I turned over again, swimming the breast-stroke. She placed her arm round my neck. Her long hair washed about me.