He looked down into her face.
"Hetty," he said, "last night—you rushed away so quickly—is it all right?"
She turned her eyes seaward again as she answered in a low voice:
"I think so—yes."
"Oh, Hetty!" he whispered.
She dropped her hand to her side, and he caught it for an instant. Overhead there were widening patches of blue sky; the sea was taking on a softer hue. Behind them the tropic world glowed in beauty. On the beach little groups of negro women, in white bandanas and bright-colored, wind-blown skirts, stood and watched the sailors aboard the brig, their shrill laughter and cries coming up softened by the gale, now rapidly falling. The pumps were going again.
"It is the only familiar sound—that pump," said Hetty.
Medbury scarcely heard her.
"I don't understand it yet," he said at last, turning to her. "Just when I thought it was all over, suddenly it comes out right. I don't understand."
"You never will, you poor boy," she replied, smiling up into his face. Then suddenly her face grew grave, and she began to speak again: "It was only when I thought it was all over that I began to think. Then the storm came, and I saw how much it meant to me that you were near me, and I was almost sure that I had made a mistake. I think I wasn't quite sure until you made that dreadful picture yesterday of what it would be for us to be merely friends. Then I knew."