The tide was ebbing, but the thin, slowly-widening line of beach was
wet and she had to pick her way carefully. She was so mindful of her
steps and, under all her mindfulness, so conscious of the ache in her
heart, that she was not noticing much else than the way to pick her
steps; and she had rounded the rocky corner of the cove and was far
into her favoured little nook, when she saw that it was occupied. A
man sat back in its deepest shelter, looking out to sea. He started
when he saw her, and she looked back as if calculating a flight.

"Please don't go," he begged, rising to greet her. "I was unpardonably
rude to you last night and it has made me very wretched. You have no
right to pardon me, but I hope you won't go away without letting me
tell you how sorry I am."

"I--it was nothing--I pardon you--I think I understand," said Mary
Alice, weakly.

He shook his head. "How could you--who are so gentle--understand?"
Mary Alice looked about to protest, but he silenced her with a
commanding gesture. "I've been so much with savages that I've grown
savage in my own ways, it seems. But--it was like this: You taught me
a game, once. It was a charming game and I was glad to learn. But we
could play it only twice, and then I had to go away. And after I went
I--I was always missing the game, always wanting to play again. At
what you called 'candle-lightin' time,' wherever I was--in strange
drawing-rooms, on rushing express trains, on ships plowing the seas,
sitting about camp-fires in the wilderness--I'd always seem to see that
little, dim-lit room in your New York, and you kneeling beside me on
the hearth-rug, with the firelight on your face and hair. I've always
been a lonely chap; but after that I was lonelier than ever; I used to