The sea without a stain on it, thought Lily Briscoe, still standing andlooking out over the bay. The sea stretched like silk across the bay.
Distance had an extraordinary power; they had been swallowed up in it,she felt, they were gone for ever, they had become part of the nature ofthings. It was so calm; it was so quiet. The steamer itself had vanished,but the great scroll of smoke still hung in the air and drooped like a flagmournfully in valediction.
