"It will be here soon, I am sure," he said.
Helen detected the lack of elation in his tone, and understood in some degree the sense of loss which made him heartsick, and yet she could not bring herself to utter words of comfort.
At the close of the meal, as they set out to walk across the sand to the switch, he said to her: "Am I never to see you again?"
"I hope so—somewhere, somehow," she replied, evasively.
"I wish you'd set a time and place," he persisted. "I can't bear to see you go. You can't realize how I shall miss you."
A fleeting gleam of amusement lighted her face. "You have known me only a few days."
"Oh yes, I have. I've known you all summer. You kept me busy thinking about you. The whole country will seem empty now."
She smiled. "I didn't know I filled so much space in the landscape. I thought I was but a speck in it." She hesitated a moment, then added: "I came out to lose myself in nature. I had come to hate men and to despise women. I was sick of my kind. I wanted to live like a savage, a part of the wild, and so—forget."
"Animals sometimes live alone; savages never do," he corrected, "unless they are outlawed from their tribe."
"That's what I tried to do—outlaw myself from my tribe. I wanted to get away from foolish comment, from malicious gossip."