Off in the east the stars were paling, there was coming a vague and mournful grey. The boat was sinking. The two men had torn away the thwarts and with a piece of rope lashed them together. It would be little more than a straw to cling to, in the turbulent wide ocean, miles from land. All were cold and numbed with the wind and the rain and the sea.
Purple streaks came into the east, a chill and solemn lift to all the sea and air and the roofless ether. Hagar and Fay looked at the violet light, at the extreme and ghostly calm of the fields of dawn. "It is coming now," said Fay, and put his arm around her. The boat sank.
The three, clinging to the frail raft they had provided, were swung from wave to wave beneath the glowing dawn.... The wind was stilled now, the water, under the rising sun, smoothed itself out. They drifted, drifted; and now the sun was an hour high.... "Look! look!" cried the Breton, and they looked and saw a red sail coming toward them.
A day or two later Hagar and Fay met at the gate of the curé's widow, and climbing through the grey town came out upon the heath above. It was a high, clear afternoon, with a marvellous blue sky. They walked until they came to a circle of stones, raised there in the immemorial, dark past. When they had wandered among them for a while, they rested, leaning against the greatest menhir, looking out over the grey-green, far-stretching heath to a line of sapphire sea. "It grows like a dream," said Hagar. "Death, life—life, death.... I think we are growing into something that transcends both ... as we have known both."
"Hagar, do you love me?"
"Yes, I love you.... It's a quiet love, but it's deep."
They sat down in the warm grass by the huge stone, and now they talked and now they were silent and content. Little by little they laid their plans.
"Let us go to London. I will go to Roger Michael's. We will marry quietly there."
"Lily and Robert will want to come from Scotland."