`` Perfect things like that always did hurt me -- I remember I called it ` the queer ache ' when I was a child . What is the reason that pain like this seems inseparable from perfection ? Is it the pain of finality -- when we realise that there can be nothing beyond but retrogression ? '' `` Perhaps , '' said Owen dreamily , `` it is the prisoned infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as expressed in that visible perfection . '' `` You seem to have a cold in the head . Better rub some tallow on your nose when you go to bed , '' said Miss Cornelia , who had come in through the little gate between the firs in time to catch Owen 's last remark . Miss Cornelia liked Owen ; but it was a matter of principle with her to visit any `` high-falutin '' language from a man with a snub . Miss Cornelia personated the comedy that ever peeps around the corner at the tragedy of life . Anne , whose nerves had been rather strained , laughed hysterically , and even Owen smiled . Certainly , sentiment and passion had a way of shrinking out of sight in Miss Cornelia 's presence . And yet to Anne nothing seemed quite as hopeless and dark and painful as it had seemed a few moments before . But sleep was far from her eyes that night . CHAPTER 27 ON THE SAND BAR Owen Ford left Four Winds the next morning . In the evening Anne went over to see Leslie , but found nobody . The house was locked and there was no light in any window . It looked like a home left soulless . Leslie did not run over on the following day -- which Anne thought a bad sign . Gilbert having occasion to go in the evening to the fishing cove , Anne drove with him to the Point , intending to stay awhile with Captain Jim . But the great light , cutting its swathes through the fog of the autumn evening , was in care of Alec Boyd and Captain Jim was away . `` What will you do ? ''
asked XXXXX .
Anne Boyd Cornelia Gilbert Jim Owen left retrogression snub swathes