He did not answer; he was piling up the pebbles in a heap, and always at a certain point the heap collapsed. "What are you thinking of? Poems again?" "I had a verse running in my head," he said apologetically; "it has nothing to do with anything." "Write it down at once," she said imperiously, and he obediently scribbled in his notebook, while she took up the work of building the stone heap--it grew higher under her light fingers. "Read it!" she said, when the scribbling of the pencil stopped, and he read: "Now the vexed clouds, wind-driven, spread wings of white, Long leaning wings across the sea and land; The waves creep back, bequeathing to our sight The treasure-house of their deserted sand; And where the nearer waves curl white and low, Knee-deep in swirling brine the slow-foot shrimpers go. Pale breadth of sand where clamorous gulls confer Marked with broad arrows by their planted feet, White rippled pools where late deep waters were, And ever the white waves marshalled in retreat, And the grey wind in sole supremacy O'er opal and amber cold of darkening sky and sea." "Opal and amber cold," she repeated; "it's not like that now. It's sapphire and gold and diamonds." "Yes," he said; "but that was how it was last week----" "Before I came----" "Yes, before you came;" his tone put a new meaning into her words. "I'm glad I brought good weather," she said cheerfully, and the little stone heap rattled itself down under her hand. "You brought the light of the world," he said, and caught her hand and held it. There was a silence. A fisherman passing along the sea-wall gave them good-day. "What made you come to Lymchurch?" he said presently, and his hand lay lightly on hers. She hesitated, and looked down at her hand and his. "I knew you were here," she said. His eyes met hers. "I always meant to see you again some day. And you knew me at once. That was so nice of you." "You have not changed," he said; "your face has not changed, only you are older, and----" "I'm twenty-two; you needn't reproach me with it. Yours is the same to a month." He moved on his elbow a little nearer to her. "Has it ever occurred to you," he asked, looking out to sea, "that you and I were made for each other?" "No; never." He looked out to sea still, and his face clouded heavily. "Ah--no--don't look like that, dear; it never occurred to me--I think I must have always known it somehow, only----" "Only what?--do you really?--only what?" A silence. Then, "Only what?" he asked again. "Only I was so afraid it would never occur to _you_!" There was no one on the wide, bare sands save the discreet artist--their faces were very near. "We shall be very, very poor, I'm afraid," he said presently. "I can go on teaching."