"No; I was with you—we were together," she answered him simply.
He stroked her damp hair, unconscious alike of the tide and the mist, drinking in her words thirstily.
"Then it isn't Robert!" he said more to himself than to her.
"No," she said again. "I think it has been you always—and I didn't know it. I think I have been waiting for you always. Robert showed me that it was you!"
He was silent, waiting for her to go on.
"If it hadn't been for your danger when you were ill from the wound, I mightn't have ever known. And if you'd been at the Dargai Hill—" she stopped and stretched out her arms, and put them around his neck, and looked into his eyes. "Oh! I couldn't have borne that! I'm selfish, but I couldn't have spared you even for the Service!"
The vision of the desolate years he had planned and thought of—the years devoid of service—and the memory of the useless uniforms, hidden away, and the sabres, useless too, crossed on the wall at home, faded, and he laid the dead memories at her feet.
"This compensates—" he broke off, kissing her in silence.
After awhile he drew her arm through his and started to walk slowly.
"You must get home and get on dry clothes," he said.