"I do not forget it. What right have you to seek for her another kind of welfare than you would have yourself? Are you to treat her as if she were worldly when you are not--to provide for her a comfort which yourself you would despise? Why should you not marry because you have to die soon?--if you _are_ thus doomed, which to me is by no means clear. Why not have what happiness you may for the rest of your sojourn? If you find at the end of twenty years that here you are after all, you will be rather sorry you did not do as I say." "And if I find myself dying at the end of six months'?" "You will thank God for those six months. The whole thing, my dear fellow, is a want of faith in God. I do not doubt you think you are doing right, but, I repeat, the whole thing comes from want of faith in God. You will take things into your own hands, and order them after a preventive and self-protective fashion, lest God should have ordained the worst for you, which worst, after all, would be best met by doing his will without inquiry into the future; and which worst is no evil. Death is no more an evil than marriage is." "But you don't see it as I do," persisted the blacksmith. "Of course I don't. I think you see it as it is not." He remained silent for a little. A shower of spray fell upon us. He started. "What a wave!" he cried. "That spray came over the top of the rock. We shall have to run for it." I fancied that he only wanted to avoid further conversation. "There's no hurry," I said. "It was high water an hour and a half ago." "You don't know this coast, sir," returned he, "or you wouldn't talk like that." As he spoke he rose, and going from under the shelter of the rock, looked along. "For God's sake, Aggy!" he cried in terror, "come at once. Every other wave be rushing across the breakwater as if it was on the level." So saying, he hurried back, caught her by the hand, and began to draw her along. "Hadn't we better stay where we are?" I suggested. "If you can stand the night in the cold. But Aggy here is delicate; and I don't care about being out all night. It's not the tide, sir; it's a ground swell--from a storm somewhere out at sea. That never asks no questions about tide or no tide." "Come along, then," I said. "But just wait one minute more. It is better to be ready for the worst." For I remembered that the day before I had seen a crowbar lying among the stones, and I thought it might be useful. In a moment or two I had found it, and returning, gave it to Joe. Then I took the girl's disengaged hand. She thanked me in a voice perfectly calm and firm. Joe took the bar in haste, and drew Agnes towards the breakwater. Any real thought of danger had not yet crossed my mind. But when I looked along the outstretched back of the mole, and saw a dim sheet of white sweep across it, I felt that there was ground for his anxiety, and prepared myself for a struggle.