hour
when everything will combine to make you care. It can't be far away."

"I'm Mrs. Gray. My husband won't be back for several days." Like the
song of death the refrain of that line rose above the sound of the sea
and of Alice's voice. Joan could listen to nothing else.

And Alice caught the wounded look in the eyes of the girl in whom she
had once had faith and was recompensed. And having said all that she
had had in her mind and more than she had meant to say, she turned on
her heel, forced herself back into control and went smiling towards the
group on the veranda. And there Joan remained standing looking as
though she had seen a ghost,--the ghost of happiness.

"Mrs. Gray,--and her husband Martin.... But what have I got to say,--I,
who refused to be his wife? It only seemed half true when I found them
together before, although that was bad enough. But this time, now that
my love for Martin has broken through all those days of pretending to
pretend and that girl is openly in that cottage, nothing could be
truer. It isn't Martin who has taken off his armor. It's I who have cut
the straps and made it fall from his shoulders Oh, my God, if only I
hadn't wanted to finish being a kid."

She moved away, at last, from the place where Alice had left her and
without looking to the right or left walked slowly down to the edge of
the sea. Vaguely, as though it was something that had happened in a
former life, she remembered the angry but neat figure of Alice and a
few of the fierce words that had got through to her. "Rank weeds ...
driven Martin ... too late.... Who Cares?" Only these had stuck. But
why should Alice have said them? It was all unnecessary. She knew them.
She had said them all on the way back from Devon, all and many more,
seated beside that nice boy, Harry, in his car.... She had died a few
feet from the stoop of the cottage, in the scent of honeysuckle and
Come back to something that wasn't life to be tortured with regrets.
All the way back she had said things to herself that Alice, angry and
bitter as she had seemed to be, never could have invented. But they too
were unnecessary. Saying things now was of no more use than throwing
stones into the sea at any time. Rank weeds ... driven Martin ... too
late ... who cares--only who cares should have come first because
everything else was the result.

And for a little while, with the feeling that she was on an island,
deserted and forgotten, she stood on the