The dawn was cold on the day after New Year's. Daylight had just begun to show through a heavy, overcast sky. Ted sat at the extreme end of the pier, legs swinging over the side. He had been wading aimlessly in the surf, and his feet were still bare, with trousers rolled up above his knees. The weeks had lagged slowly and more slowly since the day he had mailed his message to Roger. His paintings and sketches had arrived two months before, securely crated, but so far this was the only indication that Roger had gotten his note. He had little heart left for painting and had taken to sleeping days, and roaming the empty beaches alone at night.

On this morning he felt that he could stand such a life no longer... something would have to change. Unspeakably miserable, he stared out over the Gulf. As far as his eye could see, wreaths of gray mist curled out of the calm black water, twisting and writhing endlessly upward to a gray and endless sky. He watched the spiralling coils until he seemed to be spinning with them. He closed his eyes against the sudden dizzziness. For a while the only sound was the soft lapping of water against the pilings below. Time ceased.

A series of splashes opened his eyes. To the east, just off the pier, a school of fish was leaping, each belly gleaming briefly white against the dark swells. Here was the sea, he thought, teeming with strange, remote life-and his own world so desolate and dead. He thought of Anton, his artist friend whom he had not seen for over a year. Where was he now? Poor Anton . . . they had met at art school two years before, and there had been nothing between them, even at Dunesville, except a deep understanding of each other and a knowledge of the world. But Anton had persisted in wearing his rakish black beret, and smoking cigarettes from a long, carved-ivory holder. This had been the sole basis for the provincial scorn, and later on, the vicious gossip that had driven both him and Anton on separate ways from Dunesville. He sickened at the memories, and looked back at the water.

As his eyes sought the black depths, they seemed to invite him with invisible, beckoning arms. He might be better off down there. He fought a swimming sensation in his head, but to no avail. Forward, farther and still farther he leaned, as if leaden weights were pulling at his neck. On the point of toppling, he made a final, desperate effort to resist this spell, and came to his senses with a start. He threw himself back full length upon the pier, and struck himself hard-once, twiceacross the face. He turned over, with face pressed down against the cold. damp boards. Sweat poured from him, in spite of the chill. It trickled and dripped from his temples; his whole body steamed. He felt drowsy. A nap would be good, he thought, and he began to drift toward oblivion.

Minutes passed, how many he never knew. Through the stupor he felt the boards beneath him vibrate slightly, and he came unwillingly back into the world. Someone else was on the pier, he thought, and he stirred uneasily at the prospect of being discovered there. The footsteps kept coming toward him, faster, heavier, until the wooden beams shook and rattled. Resignedly he looked up, as the intruder seemed almost upon him.

"Ted!... TED! ..."

It was Roger's voice shouting. It was Roger kneeling over him, pummeling his back with his fists, beaming into his face with a smile Ted had never seen before. Ted was beyond speech. Each searched the other's eyes for a long, eager moment, and each found the same answer to the months of questioning and suspense. Then Roger sat down cross-legged on the pier, and drew Ted to lean back against him, their faces close, both looking out to sea.

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