'We have been very happy together,' everything seemed to say.

Siegmund looked up into the eyes of the morning with a laugh.

'It is very lovely,' he said, 'whatever happens.' So he went down to the beach; his dark blue eyes, darker from last
night's experience, smiled always with the pride of love. He undressed
by his usual altar-stone.

'How closely familiar everything is,' he thought. 'It seems almost as if
the curves of this stone were rounded to fit in my soul.' He touched the smooth white slope of the stone gently with discovering
fingers, in the same way as he touched the cheek of Helena, or of his
own babies. He found great pleasure in this feeling of intimacy with
things. A very soft wind, shy as a girl, put his arms round him, and
seemed to lay its cheek against his chest. He placed his hands beneath
his arms, where the wind was caressing him, and his eyes opened with
wondering pleasure.

'They find no fault with me,' he said. 'I suppose they are as fallible
as I, and so don't judge,' he added, as he waded thigh-deep into the
water, thrusting it to hear the mock-angry remonstrance.

'Once more,' he said, and he took the sea in his arms. He swam very
quietly. The water buoyed him up, holding him closely clasped. He swam
towards the white rocks of the headlands; they rose before him like
beautiful buttressed gates, so glistening that he half expected to see
fantail pigeons puffing like white irises in the niches, and white
peacocks with dark green feet stepping down the terraces, trailing a
sheen of silver.