VII
The little cove was once again as quiet as time’s heart. Once again the Annie O. was a sloop embedded in a mirror. Once again the rocks were warm underfoot.
Jack Barr lifted his fiercely aching head and looked at the distant line of the mainland, as tiny and yet as clear as something viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. He was very tired. Searching the island, in his present shaky condition, had taken all the strength out of him.
He looked at the peacefully rippling sea outside the cove and thought of what a churning pot it had been during the storm. He thought wonderingly of his rescue—a man wedged unconscious between two rock teeth; kept somehow from being washed away by the merest chance.
He thought of Mrs. Kesserich sitting alone in her house, scanning the newspapers that had nothing to tell.
He thought of the empty island behind him and the vanished motorboat.
He wondered if the sea had pulled down Martin Kesserich and Mary Alice Pope. He wondered if only Hani and Hilda had sailed away.
He winced, remembering what he had done to Martin and Mary by his blundering infatuation. In his way, he told himself, he had been as bad as the two old women.
He thought of death, and of time, and of love that defies them.
He stepped limpingly into the Annie O. to set sail—and realized that philosophy is only for the unhappy.
Mary was asleep in the stern.