She shivered a little as one after another these coming events presented themselves. There was not one of them that she would not have postponed with relief. She stood still with her face to the sunlit sea, and told herself that her summer in England had been all too short. She had an almost passionate longing for just one more year of home.
A pebble skimming past her and leaping from ripple to ripple like, a living thing caught her attention. She turned sharply, and the next moment smiled a welcome.
Nick had come up behind her unperceived. She greeted him with pleasure unfeigned. She was tired of her own morbid thoughts just then. Whatever he might be, he was at least never depressing.
"I'm saying good-bye," she told him. "I don't suppose I shall ever come here again."
He came and stood beside her while he grubbed in the sand with a stick.
"Not even to see me?" he suggested.
"Are you going to live here?" she asked in surprise.
"Oh, I suppose so," said Nick, "when I marry."
"Are you going to be married?" Almost in spite of her the question leapt out.
He looked up, grinning shrewdly. "I put it to you," he said. "Am I the sort of man to live alone?"