“But where? Won’t everything be crowded with people?”
“Not the place I’m thinking of,” he said. “A little island up off the Maine coast, fifty miles from a railroad, where no human being thinks of going—by ‘human being,’ you know what I mean—inhuman beings. There are lots of fishermen and farmers and rocks and curious old inlets, filled with pirates and sea-serpents.”
“Really—and the sea—the sea itself!”
“The sea that comes sweeping in with great, long, sleek combers. Only, I have written to an old skipper of mine and don’t know why I haven’t got an answer,” he added, frowning.
“Oh, in Maine—I forgot!”
She dove into her waist and brought out a letter in contrite embarrassment. “Came to-day. I’d quite forgotten!”
He glanced at the postmark eagerly, nodded, and read the letter rapidly.
“It’s all right,” he said, glancing up brightly. “Inga, there’s a little shack waiting for us, in the wildest, rockiest cove you ever imagined, and the sea goes thundering around the point!”
She was so excited that she could not believe it until he had shown her the letter and she had devoured it herself with her own eyes. Then she sprang into his arms, closing her hands about his neck, glowing and tremulous, frantic with joy and happiness, in one of those rare moments, seldom in the day, when she showed him the tumultuous depths of her emotions. After a while they grew quieter, and she said:
“All the same—I hate to go—it’s been so simple—so natural here, hasn’t it?”