too late ...

who cares--only who cares should have come first because everything else was the result.
And for a little while, with the feeling that she was on an island, deserted and forgotten, she stood on the edge of the sea, looking at a horizon that was utterly blank.

What was she to do?
Where was she to go?
...

Not yet a woman, and all the future lay about her in chaos....
Once more she went back in spirit to that room of Martin's which had been made the very sanctum of Romance by young blood and moonlight and listened to the plans they had made together for the discovery of a world out of which so many similar explorers had crept with wounds and bitterness.
"I'm going to make my mark," she heard Martin cry.

"I'm going to make something that will last.