"Yes. This winter and you have made me strong," she answered.

"I have made you strong in it?"

"Yes. Last summer, when you dragged me out of the surf, I was full of a number of ideas I no longer possess."

"But what have I done?"

"You have lived stridently all your life."

"Perhaps so. What of it?"

"I see that is the thing most worth doing."

"What will your husband say to such a doctrine?"

"I don't know. I am not going back to him. We are not the same people we were a year ago, and he would no more love the present Claire than I should love the present Howard."

The sky deepened from pink to crimson, but Claire's eyes were staring blankly on the ground.