When they could,
they took too much, too, if it was only to drink and forget their
misery. We could have lived so well and so easily, if we had lived
more simply, coming more directly in contact with nature, as we have
this year."

She shook her head doubtfully. "This has not been real life at all. We
have only kept alive. We haven't read anything or done anything or
helped any one--"

"Except each other and the animals dependent on us. On the whole, I
don't know but that we have accomplished about as much as when we were
devoting most of our attention to paying board and rent bills. We have
helped each other more than we can measure. We should have died had we
been left alone with our thoughts. All of life is not in cities, nor
even in books."

She did not answer for some moments, and then said slowly, "If it were
a dream, and we were going back to the old life, what would you regret
most?"

"If we were going back to the world we know, I should regret a good
many things; first, I suppose, that I did not realize sooner that we
must be going back, instead of letting myself be utterly overwhelmed.
Then I think I should be sorry that I didn't practise, a la
Demosthenes, when I had a whole coast to myself, and most of all I
should regret that we have not kept a record of our lives from day to
day. There is other writing I should want to do,--but there is no
paper, and I don't know how to make any."

"There is plenty of time to do all that yet," she said. "What else
would you wish you had done?"

He looked at her, for there was something in her voice he did not
understand, but her eyes were turned from him. "I should regret that
we had not talked more. Do you know, we have been very silent? And we
used to have so many things to talk over in the old days. I should
have twinges of remorse that I did not make more of your companionship
when I had it, instead of raising more corn than we can eat in half a
dozen years, and letting you tear your hands shelling it." He stooped
and kissed one of her slender hands. She withdrew it quickly; there
had never been even a touch of the sentimental between them.

"What would you regret?" he asked suddenly.

She shrank a little, and her eyes looked far away, past the gateway.
"Some of the things you mention; very much that I had not encouraged
you more to go on with your work, but mainly--"

"Well, mainly?"

She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and answered