He hesitated before he replied.
“I sometimes thought I was.”
“But do you think now you ever really were?”
“I don’t know—perhaps in a lonely sort of way.”
“You can never be happy in that way now?”
He said nothing, but, after a moment, he kissed her long and hard, and as if he wanted to draw her being into his through the door of his lips.
“Good-bye,” he said, releasing her. “I shall be back directly after sundown.”
“Yes. Don’t wait for the dark down there. If you were lost in the dunes!”
She pointed to the distant sand hills rising and falling monotonously to the horizon.
“If you are not back in good time,” she said, “I shall stand by the tower and wave a brand from the fire.”