"I know that," he said. "But I don't want to be happy and comfortable. I want to live." He caught hold of her hand, which he crushed so tightly that it hurt. "And I want you with me."
They heard a sudden noise from the cliff top where two boys raced and shouted, so they walked on. Feathery clots of foam blew before them on the sand, almost as if sea-flowers from the changeless ocean were being flung in the pathway of that which is unchangeable in human life.
After a while Caroline said with a start, waking out of her dream: "I wonder what Mrs. Bradford will say? But she won't be so upset as Miss Ethel would have been." She lowered her voice. "Do you know what Miss Panton said it was that actually killed Miss Ethel? It was everything being so different."
"Yes." He paused. "Well, thousands of people are dying from the same cause, I suppose, all over the world—middle-aged ones, that is." Then he strengthened his grasp on her arm. "But we're young. We're all right. Eh, Caroline?"
THE END