locked
in each other's arms, and toss the fair curls of the first-born as it
tossed the riband weeds of its deeps. And he had felt small pity; it had
rather given him a certain sense of rejoicing and triumph to see the
water laugh to scorn those who were so wise in their own conceit, and
bind beneath its chains those who held themselves masters over all
beasts of the field and birds of the air.

Other men dreaded the sea and cursed it; but he in his way loved it
almost with passion, and could he have chosen the manner of his death
would have desired that it should be by the sea and through the sea; a
death cold and serene and dreamily voluptuous: a death on which no woman
should look and in which no man should have share.

He watched her now for some time without speaking. When the first
paroxysm of her emotion had exhausted itself, she stood motionless, her
figure like a statue of bronze against the sun, her head sunk upon her
breast, her arms outstretched as though beseeching that wondrous
brightness which she saw to take her to itself and make her one with it.
Her whole attitude expressed an unutterable worship. She was like one
who for the first time hears of God.

"What is it you feel?" he asked her suddenly. He knew without asking;
but he had made it his custom to dissect all her joys and sufferings
with little heed whether he thus added to either.

At the sound of his voice she started, and a shiver shook her as she
answered him slowly, without withdrawing her gaze from the waters.

"It has been there always--always--so near me?"

"Before the land, the sea was."

"And I never knew!"--

Her head drooped on her breast; great tears rolled silently down her
cheeks; her arms fell to her sides; she shivered again and sighed. She
knew all that she had lost--this is the greatest grief that life holds.

"You never knew," he made answer. "There was only a sand-hill between
you and all this glory; but the sand-hill was enough. Many people never
climb theirs all their lives long."

The words and their meaning escaped her.

She had for once no remembrance of him, nor any other sense save of this
surpassing wonder that had thus burst on her--this miracle that had been
near her for so long, yet of which she had never in all her visions
dreamed.

She was quite silent; sunk there on her knees, motionless, and gazing
straight, with eyes unblenching, at the light.

There was no sound near them, nor was there anythi