She weighed everything that was left to her, the freedom from all the complications of life, the beauty of her prison, the years of youth and strength that might yet rejoice in the sun and the sea, and even find some companionship among these children of nature that rejoiced in them also. She compared them with the diseased monstrosities, the hideous bodies and brutal faces that swarmed in the gray cities of Europe. She saw nothing to alter her former opinion here. She was condemned at any rate to live among a folk that had walked out of an ode by Keats. But always, at the end, she pictured herself growing old, with her own life unfulfilled. Then, one day, a change came over her. She had lost all count of time in that island of lasting summer; but she must have been marooned for many months when it happened. One afternoon, when she had been swimming with Tinovao and Amaru, the two girls had run up into the woods to get some fruit, leaving Rachel to bask on the beach alone. The sunlight of the last few months had tinted her skin with a smooth rosy brown that would have made it difficult to distinguish her from a native, except for the contours of her face and the deep violet of her eyes, as she lay on that milk-white sand. Before she followed her friends, she thought she would take one more ride through the surf. She made her way out, through the gap in the reef, till she had reached the right distance. Then she rested, treading water, while she waited for the big comber that was to carry her back again.