She was obviously disturbed. A slight wave of trouble passed over her face. Her eyes failed to meet mine.
"That I cannot altogether explain to you," she said. "There are reasons why I should come, but apart from them this place is very dear to me. I think that whenever anything has happened to me I have wanted to be here. You are a man, and you will not altogether understand this."
"Why not?" I protested. "We, too, have our sentiment, the sentiment of places as well as of people. If I could choose where to die I think that it would be here, with my windows wide open and the roar of the incoming tide in my ears."
"For a young man," she remarked, looking across at me, "I should consider you rather a morbid person."
"There are times," I answered, "when I feel inclined to agree with you.
To-night is one of them."
"That," she said coolly, "is unfortunate. You have been over-working."
"I am worried by a problem," I told her. "Tell me, are you a great believer in the sanctity of human life?"
"What a question!" she murmured. "My own life, at any rate, seems to me to be a terribly important thing."
"Suppose you had a friend," I said, "who was one night attacked in a quiet spot by a man who sought his life, say, for the purpose of robbery. Your friend was the stronger and easily defended himself. Then he saw that his antagonist was a man of ill repute, an evildoer, a man whose presence upon the earth did good to no one. So he took him by the throat and deliberately crushed the life out of him. Was your friend a murderer?"
She smiled at me—that quiet, introspective smile which I knew so well.