Gill shivered.
"Good gracious, what a tale on a night like this! No matter how beautiful a place is, nor how shut off from the world, it seems never able to escape sorrow."
Allan Drain looked more closely at his companion, whose expression was scarcely discernible in the flickering lights made by the Chinese lanterns, swinging like censers between the trees that led to the blue lagoon. The winter before she would not have been capable of a speech like this!
"I am sorry, perhaps I should not have told you so unhappy a story. I should have remembered that you have been ill and in trouble. I have not had an opportunity before to express my sympathy. I have been through such a lot of bad health myself, at least I appreciate what it means."
"You are all right now, or a great deal stronger? Certainly you look so. You are kind to be so good to me. I was so stupid and disagreeable when you were ill and lonely during the winter in the Adirondacks. I seem to be one of the persons who has to learn through experience. Until recently I have always been so well and I am afraid spoiled. I hope I shall never be so impossible again. Tell me do you feel more interested in your medical studies, or is writing still your one ambition?"
"I am ashamed to say that it is, ashamed because I seem to have so little talent to justify all the time and thought I give to it, when I should be hard at work trying to learn my profession. I often fear I am one of the people who shall fall between the two, a failure in both. I did not intend to be so dismal, but I have had a pretty severe disappointment of late."
"I am sorry, would you rather tell me of it, or not?"
By this time they had reached the edge of the lagoon and stood looking down at the water, so deep a blue it was nearly black under the night sky with the stars reflected in its surface.
There were few waves and only a light breeze; a small row-boat tied to a stake lapped gently to and fro.
"Would you like to go for a row? I am not a skillful oarsman, but I can manage. We need not be out long."