“In a week,” Hollister said.  If there was an echo of regret in his voice he did not try to hide it.  “It has been the best month I have spent for a long, long time.”

“It has been a pleasant month,” Doris agreed.

They fell silent.  Hollister looked away to the west where the deep flame-red of low, straggling clouds shaded off into orange and pale gold that merged by imperceptible tints into the translucent clearness of the upper sky.  The red ball of the sun showed only a small segment above the mountains.  In ten minutes it would be gone.  From the east dusk walked silently down to the sea.

“I shall be sorry when you are gone,” he said at last.

“And I shall be sorry to go,” she murmured, “but——­”

She threw out her hands in a gesture of impotence, of resignation.

“One can’t always be on a holiday.”

“I wish we could,” Hollister muttered.  “You and I.”

The girl made no answer.  And Hollister himself grew dumb in spite of a pressure of words within him, things that tugged at his tongue for utterance.  He could scarcely bear to think of Doris Cleveland beyond sound of his voice or reach of his hand.  He realized with an overwhelming certainty how badly he needed her, how much he wanted her—­not only in ways that were sweet to think of, but as a friendly beacon in the murky, purposeless vista of years that stretched before him.  Yes, and before her also.  They had not spent all those hours together without talking of themselves.  No matter that she was cheerful, that youth gave her courage and a ready smile, there was still a finality about blindness that sometimes frightened her.  She, too, was aware—­and sometimes afraid—­of drab years running out into nothingness.

Hollister sat beside her visualizing interminable to-morrows in which there would be no Doris Cleveland; in which he would go his way vainly seeking the smile on a friendly face, the sound of a voice that thrilled him with its friendly tone.

He took her hand and held it, looking down at the soft white fingers.  She made no effort to withdraw it.  He looked at her, peering into her face, and there was nothing to guide him.  He saw only a curious expectancy and a faint deepening of the color in her cheeks.

“Don’t go back to the Euclataws, Doris,” he said at last.  “I love you.  I want you.  I need you.  Do you feel as if you liked me—­enough to take a chance?

“For it is a chance,” he finished abruptly.  “Life together is always a chance for the man and woman who undertake it.  Perhaps I surprise you by breaking out like this.  But when I think of us each going separate ways——­”

He held her hand tightly imprisoned between his, bending forward to peer closely at her face.  He could see nothing of astonishment or surprise.  Her lips were parted a little.  Her expression, as he looked, grew different, inscrutable, a little absent even, as if she were lost in thought.  But there was arising a quiver in the fingers he held which belied the emotionless fixity of her face.