Why, all his days for the last few months had been full of the love of her.
How else had he been so happy?
how else did it come about that little by little he was withdrawing from the society and influence of his artificial world, as represented by such men as Sargeant?
how else was he slowly loosening the grip of the one evil and vicious habit that had clutched him so long?
how else was his ambition stirring?
how else was his hitherto aimless enthusiasm hardening to energy and determination?
She had not always so influenced him.

In the days when they had just known each other, and met each other in the weekly course of their formal life, it had not been so, even though they pretended a certain amount of affection.

He remembered the evening when Blix had brought those days to an abrupt end, and how at the moment he had told himself that after all he had never known the real Blix.

Since then, in the charming, unconventional life they had led, everything had been changed.

He had come to know her for what she was, to know her genuine goodness, her sincerity, her contempt of affectations, her comradeship, her calm, fine strength and unbroken good nature; and day by day, here a little and there a little, his love for her had grown so quietly, so evenly, that he had never known it, until now, behold! it was suddenly come to flower, full and strong--a flower whose fragrance had suddenly filled all his life and all his world with its sweetness.
Half an hour after leaving the lifeboat station, Condy and Blix reached the old, red-brick fort, deserted, abandoned, and rime-incrusted, at the entrance of the Golden Gate.