"Can it—could it be"—says I, beginning to stammer—"that you might live here thus content to the end of your days?"
"The end of my days?" says she staring thoughtfully into the fire. "Why, Martin, this is a long way in the future I do pray, and our future is in the hands of God, so wherefore trouble?"
"Because I who have been stranger to Happiness hitherto, dread lest it may desert me and leave me the more woeful."
"Are you then happy at last—and so suddenly, Martin?"
Now this put me to no little heart-searching and perplexity, for casting back over the time since our landing on the island I knew that, despite my glooms and ill-humours, happiness had come to me in that hour I had found her alive.
"Why, I am no longer the miserable wretch I was," quoth I at last.
"Because of late you have forgot to grieve for yourself and past wrong and sorrows, Martin. Mayhap you shall one day forget them quite."
"Never!" quoth I.
"Yet so do I hope, Martin, with all my heart," says she and with a great sigh.
"Why then, fain would I forget an I might, but 'tis beyond me. The agony of the rowing-bench, the shame of stripes—the blood and bestiality of it all—these I may never forget."