It was the second day after his arrival before they finally found themselves alone together, and he realized that Merry had been awaiting this opportunity to have with him one of those intimate conversations which previously he had so much enjoyed. Now, knowing what was coming, he dreaded it. Until the words were spoken he could at least deceive himself into believing that he might be wrong, and this self-deception was all he now had left.
"Let us sit down here in the sand," she said to him, "just as we used to at Elba Beach."
"I wish we were back there now," he answered feelingly, as he responded to her request.
"We always wish for something we have had, instead of something we are going to have, don't we?" she asked, her hand modeling indefinite figures in the damp sand. "I wonder why that is."
"Because the past is known, and we can select the happy moments as we choose. The future is unknown, and we must take it as it comes."
"Oh, if we could only look into that future!" she exclaimed suddenly. "If we could only be sure that in it we could correct our mistakes! How that would simplify the problems of the present!"
"Why speak so strongly?" he asked. "That belongs to those who have mistakes to correct."
"I have been thinking of myself all my life," she replied, at once making the personal application. "I formed an ideal which I insisted upon realizing, and when I found it at last it proved beyond my reach."
"To have found it at all is more than most of us can claim."
Her hand paused in its idle motions, and she looked up at him inquiringly.