THE TRESPASSER

By D. H. Lawrence

1912

_Chapter 1_

'Take off that mute, do!' cried Louisa, snatching her fingers from thepiano keys, and turning abruptly to the violinist. 

Helena looked slowly from her music. 

'My dear Louisa, ' she replied, 'it would be simply unendurable. ' Shestood tapping her white skirt with her bow in a kind of a patheticforbearance. 

'But I can't understand it, ' cried Louisa, bouncing on her chair withthe exaggeration of one who is indignant with a beloved. 'It is onlylately you would even submit to muting your violin. At one time youwould have refused flatly, and no doubt about it. '

'I have only lately submitted to many things, ' replied Helena, whoseemed weary and stupefied, but still sententious. Louisa drooped fromher bristling defiance. 

'At any rate, ' she said, scolding in tones too naked with love, I don'tlike it. '

'_Go on from Allegro_, ' said Helena, pointing with her bow to the placeon Louisa's score of the Mozart sonata. Louisa obediently took thechords, and the music continued. 

A young man, reclining in one of the wicker arm-chairs by the fire, turned luxuriously from the girls to watch the flames poise and dancewith the music. He was evidently at his ease, yet he seemed a strangerin the room. 

It was the sitting-room of a mean house standing in line with hundredsof others of the same kind, along a wide road in South London. Now andagain the trams hummed by, but the room was foreign to the trams and tothe sound of the London traffic. It was Helena's room, for which she wasresponsible. The walls were of the dead-green colour of August foliage;the green carpet, with its border of polished floor, lay like a squareof grass in a setting of black loam. Ceiling and frieze and fireplacewere smooth white. There was no other colouring. 

The furniture, excepting the piano, had a transitory look; two lightwicker arm-chairs by the fire, the two frail stands of dark, polishedwood, the couple of flimsy chairs, and the case of books in therecess--all seemed uneasy, as if they might be tossed out to leave theroom clear, with its green floor and walls, and its white rim ofskirting-board, serene. 

On the mantlepiece were white lustres, and a small soapstone Buddha fromChina, grey, impassive, locked in his renunciation. Besides these, twotablets of translucent stone beautifully clouded with rose and blood, and carved with Chinese symbols; then a litter of mementoes, rock-crystals, and shells and scraps of seaweed. 

A stranger, entering, felt at a loss. He looked at the bare wall-spacesof dark green, at the scanty furniture, and was assured of hisunwelcome. The only objects of sympathy in the room were the white lampthat glowed on a stand near the wall, and the large, beautiful fern, with narrow fronds, which ruffled its cloud of green within the gloom ofthe window-bay. These only, with the fire, seemed friendly. 

The three candles on the dark piano burned softly, the music flutteredon, but, like numbed butterflies, stupidly. Helena played mechanically. She broke the music beneath her bow, so that it came lifeless, veryhurting to hear. The young man frowned, and pondered. Uneasily, heturned again to the players. 

The violinist was a girl of twenty-eight. Her white dress, high-waisted, swung as she forced the rhythm, determinedly swaying to the time as ifher body were the white stroke of a metronome. It made the young manfrown as he watched. Yet he continued to watch. She had a very strong, vigorous body. Her neck, pure white, arched in strength from the finehollow between her shoulders as she held the violin. The long white laceof her sleeve swung, floated, after the bow. 

Byrne could not see her face, more than the full curve of her cheek. Hewatched her hair, which at the back was almost of the colour of thesoapstone idol, take the candlelight into its vigorous freedom in frontand glisten over her forehead. 

Suddenly Helena broke off the music, and dropped her arm in irritableresignation. Louisa looked round from the piano, surprised. 

'Why, ' she cried, 'wasn't it all right?'

Helena laughed wearily. 

'It was all wrong, ' she answered, as she put her violin tenderly torest. 

'Oh, I'm sorry I did so badly, ' said Louisa in a huff. She loved Helenapassionately. 

'You didn't do badly at all, ' replied her friend, in the same tired, apathetic tone. 'It was I. '

When she had closed the black lid of her violin-case, Helena stood amoment as if at a loss. Louisa looked up with eyes full of affection, like a dog that did not dare to move to her beloved. Getting noresponse, she drooped over the piano. At length Helena looked at herfriend, then slowly closed her eyes. The burden of this excessiveaffection was too much for her. Smiling faintly, she said, as if shewere coaxing a child:

'Play some Chopin, Louisa. '

'I shall only do that all wrong, like everything else, ' said the elderplaintively. Louisa was thirty-five. She had been Helena's friendfor years. 

'Play the mazurkas, ' repeated Helena calmly. 

Louisa rummaged among the music. Helena blew out her violin-candle, andcame to sit down on the side of the fire opposite to Byrne. The musicbegan. Helena pressed her arms with her hands, musing. 

'They are inflamed still' said the young man. 

She glanced up suddenly, her blue eyes, usually so heavy and tired, lighting up with a small smile. 

'Yes, ' she answered, and she pushed back her sleeve, revealing a fine, strong arm, which was scarlet on the outer side from shoulder to wrist, like some long, red-burned fruit. The girl laid her cheek on thesmarting soft flesh caressively. 

'It is quite hot, ' she smiled, again caressing her sun-scalded arm withpeculiar joy. 

'Funny to see a sunburn like that in mid-winter, ' he replied, frowning. 'I can't think why it should last all these months. Don't you ever putanything on to heal it?'

She smiled at him again, almost pitying, then put her mouth lovingly onthe burn. 

'It comes out every evening like this, ' she said softly, with curiousjoy. 

'And that was August, and now it's February!' he exclaimed. 'It must bepsychological, you know. You make it come--the smart; you invoke it. '

She looked up at him, suddenly cold. 

'I! I never think of it, ' she answered briefly, with a kind of sneer. 

The young man's blood ran back from her at her acid tone. But themortification was physical only. Smiling quickly, gently--'

'Never?' he re-echoed. 

There was silence between them for some moments, whilst Louisa continuedto play the piano for their benefit. At last:

'Drat it, ' she exclaimed, flouncing round on the piano-stool. 

The two looked up at her. 

'Ye did run well--what hath hindered you?' laughed Byrne. 

'You!' cried Louisa. 'Oh, I can't play any more, ' she added, droppingher arms along her skirt pathetically. Helena laughed quickly. 

'Oh I can't, Helen!' pleaded Louisa. 

'My dear, ' said Helena, laughing briefly, 'you are really under _no_obligation _whatever_. '

With the little groan of one who yields to a desire contrary to herself-respect, Louisa dropped at the feet of Helena, laid her arm and herhead languishingly on the knee of her friend. The latter gave no sign, but continued to gaze in the fire. Byrne, on the other side of thehearth, sprawled in his chair, smoking a reflective cigarette. 

The room was very quiet, silent even of the tick of a clock. Outside, the traffic swept by, and feet pattered along the pavement. But thisvulgar storm of life seemed shut out of Helena's room, that remainedindifferent, like a church. Two candles burned dimly as on an altar, glistening yellow on the dark piano. The lamp was blown out, and theflameless fire, a red rubble, dwindled in the grate, so that the yellowglow of the candles seemed to shine even on the embers. Still noone spoke. 

At last Helena shivered slightly in her chair, though did not change herposition. She sat motionless. 

'Will you make coffee, Louisa?' she asked. Louisa lifted herself, lookedat her friend, and stretched slightly. 

'Oh!' she groaned voluptuously. 'This is so comfortable!'

'Don't trouble then, I'll go. No, don't get up, ' said Helena, trying todisengage herself. Louisa reached and put her hands on Helena's wrists. 

'I will go, ' she drawled, almost groaning with voluptuousness andappealing love. 

Then, as Helena still made movements to rise, the elder woman got upslowly, leaning as she did so all her weight on her friend. 

'Where is the coffee?' she asked, affecting the dullness of lethargy. She was full of small affectations, being consumed with uneasy love. 

'I think, my dear, ' replied Helena, 'it is in its usual place. '

'Oh--o-o-oh!' yawned Louisa, and she dragged herself out. 

The two had been intimate friends for years, had slept together, andplayed together and lived together. Now the friendship was coming toan end. 

'After all, ' said Byrne, when the door was closed, 'if you're aliveyou've got to live. '

Helena burst into a titter of amusement at this sudden remark. 

'Wherefore?' she asked indulgently. 

'Because there's no such thing as passive existence, ' he replied, grinning. 

She curled her lip in amused indulgence of this very young man. 

'I don't see it at all, ' she said. 

'You can't, he protested, 'any more than a tree can help budding inApril--it can't help itself, if it's alive; same with you. '

'Well, then'--and again there was the touch of a sneer--'if I can't helpmyself, why trouble, my friend?'

'Because--because I suppose _I_ can't help myself--if it bothers me, itdoes. You see, I'--he smiled brilliantly--'am April. '

She paid very little attention to him, but began in a peculiar reedy, metallic tone, that set his nerves quivering:

'But I am not a bare tree. All my dead leaves, they hang to me--and--andgo through a kind of _danse macabre_--'

'But you bud underneath--like beech, ' he said quickly. 

'Really, my friend, ' she said coldly, 'I am too tired to bud. '

'No, ' he pleaded, 'no!' With his thick brows knitted, he surveyed heranxiously. She had received a great blow in August, and she still wasstunned. Her face, white and heavy, was like a mask, almost sullen. Shelooked in the fire, forgetting him. 

'You want March, ' he said--he worried endlessly over her--'to rip offyour old leaves. I s'll have to be March, ' he laughed. 

She ignored him again because of his presumption. He waited awhile, thenbroke out once more. 

'You must start again--you must. Always you rustle your red leaves of ablasted summer. You are not dead. Even if you want to be, you're not. Even if it's a bitter thing to say, you have to say it: you arenot dead. .. . '

Smiling a peculiar, painful smile, as if he hurt her, she turned to gazeat a photograph that hung over the piano. It was the profile of ahandsome man in the prime of life. He was leaning slightly forward, asif yielding beneath a burden of life, or to the pull of fate. He lookedout musingly, and there was no hint of rebellion in the contours of theregular features. The hair was brushed back, soft and thick, straightfrom his fine brow. His nose was small and shapely, his chin rounded, cleft, rather beautifully moulded. Byrne gazed also at the photo. Hislook became distressed and helpless. 

'You cannot say you are dead with Siegmund, ' he cried brutally. Sheshuddered, clasped her burning arms on her breast, and looked into thefire. 'You are not dead with Siegmund, ' he persisted, 'so you can't sayyou live with him. You may live with his memory. But Siegmund is dead, and his memory is not he--himself, ' He made a fierce gesture ofimpatience. 'Siegmund now--he is not a memory--he is not your dead redleaves--he is Siegmund Dead! And you do not know him, because you arealive, like me, so Siegmund Dead is a stranger to you. '

With her head bowed down, cowering like a sulky animal, she looked athim under her brows. He stared fiercely back at her, but beneath hersteady, glowering gaze he shrank, then turned aside. 

'You stretch your hands blindly to the dead; you look backwards. No, younever touch the thing, ' he cried. 

'I have the arms of Louisa always round my neck, ' came her voice, likethe cry of a cat. She put her hands on her throat as if she must relievean ache. He saw her lip raised in a kind of disgust, a revulsion fromlife. She was very sick after the tragedy. 

He frowned, and his eyes dilated. 

'Folk are good; they are good for one. You never have looked at them. You would linger hours over a blue weed, and let all the people down theroad go by. Folks are better than a garden in full blossom--'

She watched him again. A certain beauty in his speech, and hispassionate way, roused her when she did not want to be roused, whenmoving from her torpor was painful. At last--

'You are merciless, you know, Cecil, ' she said. 

'And I will be, ' protested Byrne, flinging his hand at her. She laughedsoftly, wearily. 

For some time they were silent. She gazed once more at the photographover the piano, and forgot all the present. Byrne, spent for the timebeing, was busy hunting for some life-interest to give her. He ignoredthe simplest--that of love--because he was even more faithful than sheto the memory of Siegmund, and blinder than most to his own heart. 

'I do wish I had Siegmund's violin, ' she said quietly, but with greatintensity. Byrne glanced at her, then away. His heart beat sulkily. Hissanguine, passionate spirit dropped and slouched under her contempt. He, also, felt the jar, heard the discord. She made him sometimes pant withher own horror. He waited, full of hate and tasting of ashes, for thearrival of Louisa with the coffee. 

_Chapter 2_

Siegmund's violin, desired of Helena, lay in its case beside Siegmund'slean portmanteau in the white dust of the lumber-room in Highgate. Itwas worth twenty pounds, but Beatrice had not yet roused herself to sellit; she kept the black case out of sight. 

Siegmund's violin lay in the dark, folded up, as he had placed it forthe last time, with hasty, familiar hands, in its red silk shroud. Aftertwo dead months the first string had snapped, sharply striking thesensitive body of the instrument. The second string had broken nearChristmas, but no one had heard the faint moan of its going. The violinlay mute in the dark, a faint odour of must creeping over the smooth, soft wood. Its twisted, withered strings lay crisped from the anguish ofbreaking, smothered under the silk folds. The fragrance of Siegmundhimself, with which the violin was steeped, slowly changed into anodour of must. 

Siegmund died out even from his violin. He had infused it with his life, till its fibres had been as the tissue of his own flesh. Grasping hisviolin, he seemed to have his fingers on the strings of his heart and ofthe heart of Helena. It was his little beloved that drank his being andturned it into music. And now Siegmund was dead; only an odour of mustremained of him in his violin. 

It lay folded in silk in the dark, waiting. Six months before it hadlonged for rest; during the last nights of the season, when Siegmund'sfingers had pressed too hard, when Siegmund's passion, and joy, and fearhad hurt, too, the soft body of his little beloved, the violin hadsickened for rest. On that last night of opera, without pity Siegmundhad struck the closing phrases from the fiddle, harsh in his impatience, wild in anticipation. 

The curtain came down, the great singers bowed, and Siegmund felt thespattering roar of applause quicken his pulse. It was hoarse, andsavage, and startling on his inflamed soul, making him shiver withanticipation, as if something had brushed his hot nakedness. Quickly, with hands of habitual tenderness, he put his violin away. 

The theatre-goers were tired, and life drained rapidly out of theopera-house. The members of the orchestra rose, laughing, mingling theirweariness with good wishes for the holiday, with sly warning andsuggestive advice, pressing hands warmly ere they disbanded. Other yearsSiegmund had lingered, unwilling to take the long farewell of hisassociates of the orchestra. Other years he had left the opera-housewith a little pain of regret. Now he laughed, and took his comrades'hands, and bade farewells, all distractedly, and with impatience. Thetheatre, awesome now in its emptiness, he left gladly, hastening like aflame stretched level on the wind. 

With his black violin-case he hurried down the street, then halted topity the flowers massed pallid under the gaslight of the market-hall. For himself, the sea and the sunlight opened great spaces tomorrow. Themoon was full above the river. He looked at it as a man in abstractionwatches some clear thing; then he came to a standstill. It was uselessto hurry to his train. The traffic swung past the lamplight shone warmon all the golden faces; but Siegmund had already left the city. Hisface was silver and shadows to the moon; the river, in its soft grey, shaking golden sequins among the folds of its shadows, fell open like agarment before him, to reveal the white moon-glitter brilliant as livingflesh. Mechanically, overcast with the reality of the moonlight, he tookhis seat in the train, and watched the moving of things. He was in akind of trance, his consciousness seeming suspended. The train slid outamongst lights and dark places. Siegmund watched the endless movement, fascinated. 

This was one of the crises of his life. For years he had suppressed hissoul, in a kind of mechanical despair doing his duty and enduring therest. Then his soul had been softly enticed from its bondage. Now he wasgoing to break free altogether, to have at least a few days purely forhis own joy. This, to a man of his integrity, meant a breaking of bonds, a severing of blood-ties, a sort of new birth. In the excitement of thislast night his life passed out of his control, and he sat at thecarriage-window, motionless, watching things move. 

He felt busy within him a strong activity which he could not help. Slowly the body of his past, the womb which had nourished him in onefashion for so many years, was casting him forth. He was trembling inall his being, though he knew not with what. All he could do now was towatch the lights go by, and to let the translation of himself continue. 

When at last the train ran out into the full, luminous night, andSiegmund saw the meadows deep in moonlight, he quivered with a lowanticipation. The elms, great grey shadows, seemed to loiter in theircloaks across the pale fields. He had not seen them so before. The worldwas changing. 

The train stopped, and with a little effort he rose to go home. Thenight air was cool and sweet. He drank it thirstily. In the road againhe lifted his face to the moon. It seemed to help him; in its brillianceamid the blonde heavens it seemed to transcend fretfulness. It wouldfront the waves with silver as they slid to the shore, and Helena, looking along the coast, waiting, would lift her white hands with suddenjoy. He laughed, and the moon hurried laughing alongside, through theblack masses of the trees. 

He had forgotten he was going home for this night. The chill wetness ofhis little white garden-gate reminded him, and a frown came on his face. As he closed the door, and found himself in the darkness of the hall, the sense of his fatigue came fully upon him. It was an effort to go tobed. Nevertheless, he went very quietly into the drawing-room. There themoonlight entered, and he thought the whiteness was Helena. He held hisbreath and stiffened, then breathed again. 'Tomorrow, ' he thought, as helaid his violin-case across the arms of a wicker chair. But he had aphysical feeling of the presence of Helena: in his shoulders he seemedto be aware of her. Quickly, half lifting his arms, he turned to themoonshine. 'Tomorrow!' he exclaimed quietly; and he left the roomstealthily, for fear of disturbing the children. 

In the darkness of the kitchen burned a blue bud of light. He quicklyturned up the gas to a broad yellow flame, and sat down at table. He wastired, excited, and vexed with misgiving. As he lay in his arm-chair, helooked round with disgust. 

The table was spread with a dirty cloth that had great brown stainsbetokening children. In front of him was a cup and saucer, and a smallplate with a knife laid across it. The cheese, on another plate, waswrapped in a red-bordered, fringed cloth, to keep off the flies, whicheven then were crawling round, on the sugar, on the loaf, on thecocoa-tin. Siegmund looked at his cup. It was chipped, and a stain hadgone under the glaze, so that it looked like the mark of a dirty mouth. He fetched a glass of water. 

The room was drab and dreary. The oil-cloth was worn into a hole nearthe door. Boots and shoes of various sizes were scattered over thefloor, while the sofa was littered with children's clothing. In theblack stove the ash lay dead; on the range were chips of wood, andnewspapers, and rubbish of papers, and crusts of bread, and crusts ofbread-and-jam. As Siegmund walked across the floor, he crushed twosweets underfoot. He had to grope under sofa and dresser to find hisslippers; and he was in evening dress. 

It would be the same, while ever Beatrice was Beatrice and Siegmund herhusband. He ate his bread and cheese mechanically, wondering why he wasmiserable, why he was not looking forward with joy to the morrow. As heate, he closed his eyes, half wishing he had not promised Helena, halfwishing he had no tomorrow. 

Leaning back in his chair, he felt something in the way. It was a smallteddy-bear and half of a strong white comb. He grinned to himself. Thiswas the summary of his domestic life--a broken, coarse comb, a childcrying because her hair was lugged, a wife who had let the hair go tillnow, when she had got into a temper to see the job through; and then theteddy-bear, pathetically cocking a black worsted nose, and liftingabsurd arms to him. 

He wondered why Gwen had gone to bed without her pet. She would want thesilly thing. The strong feeling of affection for his children came overhim, battling with something else. He sank in his chair, and graduallyhis baffled mind went dark. He sat, overcome with weariness and trouble, staring blankly into the space. His own stifling roused him. Straightening his shoulders, he took a deep breath, then relaxed again. After a while he rose, took the teddy-bear, and went slowly to bed. 

Gwen and Marjory, aged nine and twelve, slept together in a small room. It was fairly light. He saw his favourite daughter lying quiteuncovered, her wilful head thrown back, her mouth half open. Her blackhair was tossed across the pillow: he could see the action. Marjorysnuggled under the sheet. He placed the teddy-bear between thetwo girls. 

As he watched them, he hated the children for being so dear to him. Either he himself must go under, and drag on an existence he hated, orthey must suffer. But he had agreed to spend this holiday with Helena, and meant to do so. As he turned, he saw himself like a ghost cross themirror. He looked back; he peered at himself. His hair still grew thickand dark from his brow: he could not see the grey at the temples. Hiseyes were dark and tender, and his mouth, under the black moustache, wasfull of youth. 

He rose, looked at the children, frowned, and went to his own smallroom. He was glad to be shut alone in the little cubicle of darkness. 

Outside the world lay in a glamorous pallor, casting shadows that madethe farm, the trees, the bulks of villas, look like live creatures. Thesame pallor went through all the night, glistening on Helena as she laycurled up asleep at the core of the glamour, like the moon; on the searocking backwards and forwards till it rocked her island as she slept. She was so calm and full of her own assurance. It was a great rest to bewith her. With her, nothing mattered but love and the beauty of things. He felt parched and starving. She had rest and love, like water andmanna for him. She was so strong in her self-possession, in her love ofbeautiful things and of dreams. 

The clock downstairs struck two. 

'I must get to sleep, ' he said. 

He dragged his portmanteau from beneath the bed and began to pack it. When at last it was finished, he shut it with a snap. The click soundedfinal. He stood up, stretched himself, and sighed. 

'I am fearfully tired, ' he said. 

But that was persuasive. When he was undressed he sat in his pyjamas forsome time, rapidly beating his fingers on his knee. 

'Thirty-eight years old, ' he said to himself, 'and disconsolate as achild!' He began to muse of the morrow. 

When he seemed to be going to sleep, he woke up to find thoughtslabouring over his brain, like bees on a hive. Recollections, swiftthoughts, flew in and alighted upon him, as wild geese swing down andtake possession of a pond. Phrases from the opera tyrannized over him;he played the rhythm with all his blood. As he turned over in thistorture, he sighed, and recognized a movement of the De Beriot concertowhich Helena had played for her last lesson. He found himself watchingher as he had watched then, felt again the wild impatience when she waswrong, started again as, amid the dipping and sliding of her bow, herealized where his thoughts were going. She was wrong, he was hasty; andhe felt her blue eyes looking intently at him. 

Both started as his daughter Vera entered suddenly. She was a handsomegirl of nineteen. Crossing the room, brushing Helena as if she were apiece of furniture in the way, Vera had asked her father a question, ina hard, insulting tone, then had gone out again, just as if Helena hadnot been in the room. 

Helena stood fingering the score of _Pelléas_. When Vera had gone, sheasked, in the peculiar tone that made Siegmund shiver:

'Why do you consider the music of _Pelléas_ cold?'

Siegmund had struggled to answer. So they passed everything off, withoutmention, after Helena's fashion, ignoring all that might be humiliating;and to her much was humiliating. 

For years she had come as pupil to Siegmund, first as a friend of thehousehold. Then she and Louisa went occasionally to whatever hall ortheatre had Siegmund in the orchestra, so that shortly the three formedthe habit of coming home together. Then Helena had invited Siegmund toher home; then the three friends went walks together; then the two wentwalks together, whilst Louisa sheltered them. 

Helena had come to read his loneliness and the humiliation of his lot. He had felt her blue eyes, heavily, steadily gazing into his soul, andhe had lost himself to her. 

That day, three weeks before the end of the season, when Vera had soinsulted Helena, the latter had said, as she put on her coat, looking athim all the while with heavy blue eyes: 'I think, Siegmund, I cannotcome here any more. Your home is not open to me any longer. ' He hadwrithed in confusion and humiliation. As she pressed his hand, closelyand for a long time, she said: 'I will write to you. ' Then she left him. 

Siegmund had hated his life that day. Soon she wrote. A week later, whenhe lay resting his head on her lap in Richmond Park, she said:

'You are so tired, Siegmund. ' She stroked his face, and kissed himsoftly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if itis not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel andugly for Siegmund. 

'You are so tired, dear. You must come away with me and rest, the firstweek in August. '

His blood had leapt, and whatever objections he raised, such as havingno money, he allowed to be overridden. He was going to Helena, to theIsle of Wight, tomorrow. 

Helena, with her blue eyes so full of storm, like the sea, but, alsolike the sea, so eternally self-sufficient, solitary; with her thickwhite throat, the strongest and most wonderful thing on earth, and hersmall hands, silken and light as wind-flowers, would be his tomorrow, along with the sea and the downs. He clung to the exquisite flame whichflooded him. .. . 

But it died out, and he thought of the return to London, to Beatrice, and the children. How would it be? Beatrice, with her furious dark eyes, and her black hair loosely knotted back, came to his mind as she hadbeen the previous day, flaring with temper when he said to her:

'I shall be going away tomorrow for a few days' holiday. '

She asked for detail, some of which he gave. Then, dissatisfied andinflamed, she broke forth in her suspicion and her abuse, and hercontempt, while two large-eyed children stood listening by. Siegmundhated his wife for drawing on him the grave, cold looks of condemnationfrom his children. 

Something he had said touched Beatrice. She came of good family, hadbeen brought up like a lady, educated in a convent school in France. Heevoked her old pride. She drew herself up with dignity, and called thechildren away. He wondered if he could bear a repetition of thatdegradation. It bled him of his courage and self-respect. 

In the morning Beatrice was disturbed by the sharp sneck of the halldoor. Immediately awake, she heard his quick, firm step hastening downthe gravel path. In her impotence, discarded like a worn out object, shelay for the moment stiff with bitterness. 

'I am nothing, I am nothing, ' she said to herself. She lay quite rigidfor a time. 

There was no sound anywhere. The morning sunlight pierced vividlythrough the slits of the blind. Beatrice lay rocking herself, breathinghard, her finger-nails pressing into her palm. Then came the sound of atrain slowing down in the station, and directly the quick'chuff-chuff-chuff' of its drawing out. Beatrice imagined the sunlighton the puffs of steam, and the two lovers, her husband and Helena, rushing through the miles of morning sunshine. 

'God strike her dead! Mother of God, strike her down!' she said aloud, in a low tone. She hated Helena. 

Irene, who lay with her mother, woke up and began to question her. 

_Chapter 3_

In the miles of morning sunshine, Siegmund's shadows, his children, Beatrice, his sorrow, dissipated like mist, and he was elated as a youngman setting forth to travel. When he had passed Portsmouth Towneverything had vanished but the old gay world of romance. He laughed ashe looked out of the carriage window. 

Below, in the street, a military band passed glittering. A brave soundfloated up, and again he laughed, loving the tune, the clash and glitterof the band, the movement of scarlet, blithe soldiers beyond the park. People were drifting brightly from church. How could it be Sunday! Itwas no time; it was Romance, going back to Tristan. 

Women, like crocus flowers, in white and blue and lavender, moved gaily. Everywhere fluttered the small flags of holiday. Every form dancedlightly in the sunshine. 

And beyond it all were the silent hillsides of the island, with Helena. It was so wonderful, he could bear to be patient. She would be all inwhite, with her cool, thick throat left bare to the breeze, her faceshining, smiling as she dipped her head because of the sun, whichglistened on her uncovered hair. 

He breathed deeply, stirring at the thought. But he would not growimpatient. The train had halted over the town, where scarlet soldiers, and ludicrous blue sailors, and all the brilliant women from churchshook like a kaleidoscope down the street. The train crawled on, drawingnear to the sea, for which Siegmund waited breathless. It was so likeHelena, blue, beautiful, strong in its reserve. 

Another moment they were in the dirty station. Then the day flashed out, and Siegmund mated with joy. He felt the sea heaving below him. Helooked round, and the sea was blue as a periwinkle flower, while goldand white and blood-red sails lit here and there upon the blueness. Standing on the deck, he gave himself to the breeze and to the sea, feeling like one of the ruddy sails--as if he were part of it all. Allhis body radiated amid the large, magnificent sea-moon like a pieceof colour. 

The little ship began to pulse, to tremble. White with the softness of abosom, the water rose up frothing and swaying gently. Ships drew nearthe inquisitive birds; the old _Victory_ shook her myriad pointed flagsof yellow and scarlet; the straight old houses of the quay passed by. 

Outside the harbour, like fierce creatures of the sea come wildly up tolook, the battleships laid their black snouts on the water. Siegmundlaughed at them. He felt the foam on his face like a sparkling, felt theblue sea gathering round. 

On the left stood the round fortress, quaintly chequered, and solidlyalone in the walk of water, amid the silent flight of the golden-andcrimson-winged boats. 

Siegmund watched the bluish bulk of the island. Like the beautiful womenin the myths, his love hid in its blue haze. It seemed impossible. Behind him, the white wake trailed myriads of daisies. On either handthe grim and wicked battleships watched along their sharp noses. Beneathhim the clear green water swung and puckered as if it were laughing. Infront, Sieglinde's island drew near and nearer, creeping towards him, bringing him Helena. 

Meadows and woods appeared, houses crowded down to the shore to meethim; he was in the quay, and the ride was over. Siegmund regretted it. But Helena was on the island, which rode like an anchored ship under thefleets of cloud that had launched whilst Siegmund was on water. As hewatched the end of the pier loom higher, large ponderous trains of cloudcast over him the shadows of their bulk, and he shivered in thechill wind. 

His travelling was very slow. The sky's dark shipping pressed closer andcloser, as if all the clouds had come to harbour. Over the flat landsnear Newport the wind moaned like the calling of many violoncellos. Allthe sky was grey. Siegmund waited drearily on Newport station, where thewind swept coldly. It was Sunday, and the station and the island weredesolate, having lost their purposes. 

Siegmund put on his overcoat and sat down. All his morning's blaze ofelation was gone, though there still glowed a great hope. He had sleptonly two hours of the night. An empty man, he had drunk joy, and now theintoxication was dying out. 

At three o'clock of the afternoon he sat alone in the second-classcarriage, looking out. A few raindrops struck the pane, then the blurreddazzle of a shower came in a burst of wind, and hid the downs and thereeds that shivered in the marshy places. Siegmund sat in a chillytorpor. He counted the stations. Beneath his stupor his heart wasthudding heavily with excitement, surprising him, for his brainfelt dead. 

The train slowed down: Yarmouth! One more station, then. Siegmundwatched the platform, shiny with rain, slide past. On the dry grey underthe shelter, one white passenger was waiting. Suddenly Siegmund's heartleaped up, wrenching wildly. He burst open the door, and caught hold ofHelena. She dilated, gave a palpitating cry as he dragged her intothe carriage. 

'You _here_!' he exclaimed, in a strange tone. She was shivering withcold. Her almost naked arms were blue. She could not answer Siegmund'squestion, but lay clasped against him, shivering away her last chill ashis warmth invaded her. He laughed in his heart as she nestled into him. 

'Is it a dream now, dear?' he whispered. Helena clasped him tightly, shuddering because of the delicious suffusing of his warmth through her. 

Almost immediately they heard the grinding of the brakes. 

'Here we are, then!' exclaimed Helena, dropping into her conventional, cheerful manner at once. She put straight her hat, while he gatheredhis luggage. 

Until tea-time there was a pause in their progress. Siegmund wastingling with an exquisite vividness, as if he had taken some rarestimulant. He wondered at himself. It seemed that every fibre in hisbody was surprised with joy, as each tree in a forest at dawn uttersastonished cries of delight. 

When Helena came back, she sat opposite to him to see him. His naïvelook of joy was very sweet to her. His eyes were dark blue, showing thefibrils, like a purple-veined flower at twilight, and somehow, mysteriously, joy seemed to quiver in the iris. Helena appreciated him, feature by feature. She liked his clear forehead, with its thick blackhair, and his full mouth, and his chin. She loved his hands, that weresmall, but strong and nervous, and very white. She liked his breast, that breathed so strong and quietly, and his arms, and his thighs, andhis knees. 

For him, Helena was a presence. She was ambushed, fused in an aura ofhis love. He only saw she was white, and strong, and full fruited, heonly knew her blue eyes were rather awful to him. 

Outside, the sea-mist was travelling thicker and thicker inland. Theirlodging was not far from the bay. As they sat together at tea, Siegmund's eyes dilated, and he looked frowning at Helena. 

'What is it?' he asked, listening uneasily. 

Helena looked up at him, from pouring out the tea. His little anxiouslook of distress amused her. 

'The noise, you mean? Merely the fog-horn, dear--not Wotan's wrath, norSiegfried's dragon. .. . '

The fog was white at the window. They sat waiting. After a few secondsthe sound came low, swelling, like the mooing of some great sea animal, alone, the last of the monsters. The whole fog gave off the sound for asecond or two, then it died down into an intense silence. Siegmund andHelena looked at each other. His eyes were full of trouble. To see abig, strong man anxious-eyed as a child because of a strange soundamused her. But he was tired. 

'I assure you, it _is_ only a fog-horn, ' she laughed. 

'Of course. But it is a depressing sort of sound. '

'Is it?' she said curiously. 'Why? Well--yes--I think I can understandits being so to some people. It's something like the call of the hornacross the sea to Tristan. '

She hummed softly, then three times she sang the horn-call. Siegmund, with his face expressionless as a mask, sat staring out at the mist. Theboom of the siren broke in upon them. To him, the sound was full offatality. Helena waited till the noise died down, then she repeated herhorn-call. 

'Yet it is very much like the fog-horn, ' she said, curiously interested. 

'This time next week, Helena!' he said. 

She suddenly went heavy, and stretched across to clasp his hand as itlay upon the table. 

'I shall be calling to you from Cornwall, ' she said. 

He did not reply. So often she did not take his meaning, but left himalone with his sense of tragedy. She had no idea how his life waswrenched from its roots, and when he tried to tell her, she balked him, leaving him inwardly quite lonely. 

'There is _no_ next week, ' she declared, with great cheerfulness. 'Thereis only the present. '

At the same moment she rose and slipped across to him. Putting her armsround his neck, she stood holding his head to her bosom, pressing itclose, with her hand among his hair. His nostrils and mouth were crushedagainst her breast. He smelled the silk of her dress and the faint, intoxicating odour of her person. With shut eyes he owned heavily tohimself again that she was blind to him. But some other self urged withgladness, no matter how blind she was, so that she pressed his faceupon her. 

She stroked and caressed his hair, tremblingly clasped his head againsther breast, as if she would never release him; then she bent to kiss hisforehead. He took her in his arms, and they were still for awhile. 

Now he wanted to blind himself with her, to blaze up all his past andfuture in a passion worth years of living. 

After tea they rested by the fire, while she told him all the delightfulthings she had found. She had a woman's curious passion for details, awoman's peculiar attachment to certain dear trifles. He listened, smiling, revived by her delight, and forgetful of himself. She soothedhim like sunshine, and filled him with pleasure; but he hardly attendedto her words. 

'Shall we go out, or are you too tired? No, you are tired--you are verytired, ' said Helena. 

She stood by his chair, looking down on him tenderly. 

'No, ' he replied, smiling brilliantly at her, and stretching hishandsome limbs in relief--'no, not at all tired now. '

Helena continued to look down on him in quiet, covering tenderness. Butshe quailed before the brilliant, questioning gaze of his eyes. 

'You must go to bed early tonight, ' she said, turning aside her face, ruffling his soft black hair. He stretched slightly, stiffening hisarms, and smiled without answering. It was a very keen pleasure to bethus alone with her and in her charge. He rose, bidding her wrap herselfup against the fog. 

'You are sure you're not too tired?' she reiterated. 

He laughed. 

Outside, the sea-mist was white and woolly. They went hand in hand. Itwas cold, so she thrust her hand with his into the pocket of hisovercoat, while they walked together. 

'I like the mist, ' he said, pressing her hand in his pocket. 

'I don't dislike it, ' she replied, shrinking nearer to him. 

'It puts us together by ourselves, ' he said. She plodded alongside, bowing her head, not replying. He did not mind her silence. 

'It couldn't have happened better for us than this mist, ' he said. 

She laughed curiously, almost with a sound of tears. 

'Why?' she asked, half tenderly, half bitterly. 

'There is nothing else but you, and for you there is nothing else butme--look!'

He stood still. They were on the downs, so that Helena found herselfquite alone with the man in a world of mist. Suddenly she flung herselfsobbing against his breast. He held her closely, tenderly, not knowingwhat it was all about, but happy and unafraid. 

In one hollow place the siren from the Needles seemed to bellow full intheir ears. Both Siegmund and Helena felt their emotion too intense. They turned from it. 

'What is the pitch?' asked Helena. 

'Where it is horizontal? It slides up a chromatic scale, ' said Siegmund. 

'Yes, but the settled pitch--is it about E?'

'E!' exclaimed Siegmund. 'More like F. '

'Nay, listen!' said Helena. 

They stood still and waited till there came the long booing of thefog-horn. 

'There!' exclaimed Siegmund, imitating the sound. 'That is not E. ' Herepeated the sound. 'It is F. '

'Surely it is E, ' persisted Helena. 

'Even F sharp, ' he rejoined, humming the note. 

She laughed, and told him to climb the chromatic scale. 

'But you agree?' he said. 

'I do not, ' she replied. 

The fog was cold. It seemed to rob them of their courage to talk. 

'What is the note in _Tristan_?' Helena made an effort to ask. 

'That is not the same, ' he replied. 

'No, dear, that is not the same, ' she said in low, comforting tones. Hequivered at the caress. She put her arms round him reached up her faceyearningly for a kiss. He forgot they were standing in the publicfootpath, in daylight, till she drew hastily away. She heard footstepsdown the fog. 

As they climbed the path the mist grew thinner, till it was only a greyhaze at the top. There they were on the turfy lip of the land. The skywas fairly clear overhead. Below them the sea was singing hoarselyto itself. 

Helena drew him to the edge of the cliff. He crushed her hand, drawingslightly back. But it pleased her to feel the grip on her hand becomingunbearable. They stood right on the edge, to see the smooth cliff slopeinto the mist, under which the sea stirred noisily. 

'Shall we walk over, then?' said Siegmund, glancing downwards. Helena'sheart stood still a moment at the idea, then beat heavily. How could heplay with the idea of death, and the five great days in front? She wasafraid of him just then. 

'Come away, dear, ' she pleaded. 

He would, then, forgo the few consummate days! It was bitterness to herto think so. 

'Come away, dear!' she repeated, drawing him slowly to the path. 

'You are not afraid?' he asked. 

'Not afraid, no. .. . ' Her voice had that peculiar, reedy, harsh qualitythat made him shiver. 

'It is too easy a way, ' he said satirically. 

She did not take in his meaning. 

'And five days of our own before us, Siegmund!' she scolded. 'The mistis Lethe. It is enough for us if its spell lasts five days. '

He laughed, and took her in his arms, kissing her very closely. 

They walked on joyfully, locking behind them the doors of forgetfulness. 

As the sun set, the fog dispersed a little. Breaking masses of mist wentflying from cliff to cliff, and far away beyond the cliffs the westernsky stood dimmed with gold. The lovers wandered aimlessly over thegolf-links to where green mounds and turfed banks suggested to Helenathat she was tired, and would sit down. They faced the lighted chamberof the west, whence, behind the torn, dull-gold curtains of fog, the sunwas departing with pomp. 

Siegmund sat very still, watching the sunset. It was a splendid, flamingbridal chamber where he had come to Helena. He wondered how to expressit; how other men had borne this same glory. 

'What is the music of it?' he asked. 

She glanced at him. His eyelids were half lowered, his mouth slightlyopen, as if in ironic rhapsody. 

'Of what, dear?'

'What music do you think holds the best interpretation of sunset?'

His skin was gold, his real mood was intense. She revered him for amoment. 

'I do not know, ' she said quietly; and she rested her head against hisshoulder, looking out west. 

There was a space of silence, while Siegmund dreamed on. 

'A Beethoven symphony--the one--' and he explained to her. 

She was not satisfied, but leaned against him, making her choice. Thesunset hung steady, she could scarcely perceive a change. 

'The Grail music in _Lohengrin_, ' she decided. 

'Yes, ' said Siegmund. He found it quite otherwise, but did not troubleto dispute. He dreamed by himself. This displeased her. She wanted himfor herself. How could he leave her alone while he watched the sky? Shealmost put her two hands over his eyes. 

_Chapter 4_

The gold march of sunset passed quickly, the ragged curtains of mistclosed to. Soon Siegmund and Helena were shut alone within the densewide fog. She shivered with the cold and the damp. Startled, he took herin his arms, where she lay and clung to him. Holding her closely, hebent forward, straight to her lips. His moustache was drenched cold withfog, so that she shuddered slightly after his kiss, and shuddered again. He did not know why the strong tremor passed through her. Thinking itwas with fear and with cold, he undid his overcoat, put her close on hisbreast, and covered her as best he could. That she feared him at thatmoment was half pleasure, half shame to him. Pleadingly he hid his faceon her shoulder, held her very tightly, till his face grew hot, buriedagainst her soft strong throat. 

'You are so big I can't hold you, ' she whispered plaintively, catchingher breath with fear. Her small hands grasped at the breadth of hisshoulders ineffectually. 

'You will be cold. Put your hands under my coat, ' he whispered. 

He put her inside his overcoat and his coat. She came to his warm breastwith a sharp intaking of delight and fear; she tried to make her handsmeet in the warmth of his shoulders, tried to clasp him. 

'See! I can't, ' she whispered. 

He laughed short, and pressed her closer. 

Then, tucking her head in his breast, hiding her face, she timidly slidher hands along his sides, pressing softly, to find the contours of hisfigure. Softly her hands crept over the silky back of his waistcoat, under his coats, and as they stirred, his blood flushed up, and upagain, with fire, till all Siegmund was hot blood, and his breast wasone great ache. 

He crushed her to him--crushed her in upon the ache of his chest. Hismuscles set hard and unyielding; at that moment he was a tense, vividbody of flesh, without a mind; his blood, alive and conscious, runningtowards her. He remained perfectly still, locked about Helena, consciousof nothing. 

She was hurt and crushed, but it was pain delicious to her. It wasmarvellous to her how strong he was, to keep up that grip of her likesteel. She swooned in a kind of intense bliss. At length she foundherself released, taking a great breath, while Siegmund was moving hismouth over her throat, something like a dog snuffing her, but with hislips. Her heart leaped away in revulsion. His moustache thrilled herstrangely. His lips, brushing and pressing her throat beneath the ear, and his warm breath flying rhythmically upon her, made her vibratethrough all her body. Like a violin under the bow, she thrilled beneathhis mouth, and shuddered from his moustache. Her heart was like fire inher breast. 

Suddenly she strained madly to him, and, drawing back her head, placedher lips on his, close, till at the mouth they seemed to melt and fusetogether. It was the long, supreme kiss, in which man and woman have onebeing, Two-in-one, the only Hermaphrodite. 

When Helena drew away her lips, she was exhausted. She belonged to thatclass of 'dreaming women' with whom passion exhausts itself at themouth. Her desire was accomplished in a real kiss. The fire, in heavyflames, had poured through her to Siegmund, from Siegmund to her. Itsank, and she felt herself flagging. She had not the man's brightnessand vividness of blood. She lay upon his breast, dreaming how beautifulit would be to go to sleep, to swoon unconscious there, on that rarebed. She lay still on Siegmund's breast, listening to his heavilybeating heart. 

With her the dream was always more than the actuality. Her dream ofSiegmund was more to her than Siegmund himself. He might be less thanher dream, which is as it may be. However, to the real man she wasvery cruel. 

He held her close. His dream was melted in his blood, and his blood ranbright for her. His dreams were the flowers of his blood. Hers were moredetached and inhuman. For centuries a certain type of woman has beenrejecting the 'animal' in humanity, till now her dreams are abstract, and full of fantasy, and her blood runs in bondage, and her kindness isfull of cruelty. 

Helena lay flagging upon the breast of Siegmund. He folded her closely, and his mouth and his breath were warm on her neck. She sank away fromhis caresses, passively, subtly drew back from him. He was far toosensitive not to be aware of this, and far too much of a man not toyield to the woman. His heart sank, his blood grew sullen at herwithdrawal. Still he held her; the two were motionless and silent forsome time. 

She became distressedly conscious that her feet, which lay on the wetgrass, were aching with cold. She said softly, gently, as if he was herchild whom she must correct and lead:

'I think we ought to go home, Siegmund. ' He made a small sound, thatmight mean anything, but did not stir or release her. His mouth, however, remained motionless on her throat, and the caress went outof it. 

'It is cold and wet, dear; we ought to go, ' she coaxed determinedly. 

'Soon, ' he said thickly. 

She sighed, waited a moment, then said very gently, as if she were loathto take him from his pleasure:

'Siegmund, I am cold. '

There was a reproach in this which angered him. 

'Cold!' he exclaimed. 'But you are warm with me--'

'But my feet are out on the grass, dear, and they are like wet pebbles. '

'Oh dear!' he said. 'Why didn't you give them me to warm?' He leanedforward, and put his hand on her shoes. 

'They are very cold, ' he said. 'We must hurry and make them warm. '

When they rose, her feet were so numbed she could hardly stand. Sheclung to Siegmund, laughing. 

'I wish you had told me before, ' he said. 'I ought to have known. .. . '

Vexed with himself, he put his arm round her, and they set off home. 

_Chapter 5_

They found the fire burning brightly in their room. The only otherperson in the pretty, stiffly-furnished cottage was their landlady, acharming old lady, who let this sitting-room more for the change, forthe sake of having visitors, than for gain. 

Helena introduced Siegmund as 'My friend'. The old lady smiled upon him. He was big, and good-looking, and embarrassed. She had had a son yearsback. .. . And the two were lovers. She hoped they would come to her housefor their honeymoon. 

Siegmund sat in his great horse-hair chair by the fire, while Helenaattended to the lamp. Glancing at him over the glowing globe, she foundhim watching her with a small, peculiar smile of irony, and anger, andbewilderment. He was not quite himself. Her hand trembled so, she couldscarcely adjust the wicks. 

Helena left the room to change her dress. 

'I shall be back before Mrs Curtiss brings in the tray. There is theNietzsche I brought--'

He did not answer as he watched her go. Left alone, he sat with his armsalong his knees, perfectly still. His heart beat heavily, and all hisbeing felt sullen, watchful, aloof, like a balked animal. Thoughts cameup in his brain like bubbles--random, hissing out aimlessly. Once, inthe startling inflammability of his blood, his veins ran hot, andhe smiled. 

When Helena entered the room his eyes sought hers swiftly, as sparkslighting on the tinder. But her eyes were only moist with tenderness. His look instantly changed. She wondered at his being so silent, so strange. 

Coming to him in her unhesitating, womanly way--she was only twenty-sixto his thirty-eight--she stood before him, holding both his hands andlooking down on him with almost gloomy tenderness. She wore a whitedress that showed her throat gathering like a fountain-jet of solid foamto balance her head. He could see the full white arms passing clearthrough the dripping spume of lace, towards the rise of her breasts. Buther eyes bent down upon him with such gloom of tenderness that he darednot reveal the passion burning in him. He could not look at her. Hestrove almost pitifully to be with her sad, tender, but he could not putout his fire. She held both his hands firm, pressing them in appeal forher dream love. He glanced at her wistfully, then turned away. Shewaited for him. She wanted his caresses and tenderness. He would notlook at her. 

'You would like supper now, dear?' she asked, looking where the darkhair ended, and his neck ran smooth, under his collar, to the strongsetting of his shoulders. 

'Just as you will, ' he replied. 

Still she waited, and still he would not look at her. Something troubledhim, she thought. He was foreign to her. 

'I will spread the cloth, then, ' she said, in deep tones of resignation. She pressed his hands closely, and let them drop. He took no notice, but, still with his arms on his knees, he stared into the fire. 

In the golden glow of lamplight she set small bowls of white andlavender sweet-peas, and mignonette, upon the round table. He watchedher moving, saw the stir of her white, sloping shoulders under the lace, and the hollow of her shoulders firm as marble, and the slight rise andfall of her loins as she walked. He felt as if his breast were scalded. It was a physical pain to him. 

Supper was very quiet. Helena was sad and gentle; he had a peculiar, enigmatic look in his eyes, between suffering and mockery and love. Hewas quite intractable; he would not soften to her, but remained therealoof. He was tired, and the look of weariness and suffering was evidentto her through his strangeness. In her heart she wept. 

At last she tinkled the bell for supper to be cleared. Meanwhile, restlessly, she played fragments of Wagner on the piano. 

'Will you want anything else?' asked the smiling old landlady. 

'Nothing at all, thanks, ' said Helena, with decision. 

'Oh! then I think I will go to bed when I've washed the dishes. You willput the lamp out, dear?'

'I am well used to a lamp, ' smiled Helena. 'We use them always at home. '

She had had a day before Siegmund's coming, in which to win Mrs Curtiss'heart, and she had been successful. The old lady took the tray. 

'Good-night, dear--good-night, sir. I will leave you. You will not belong, dear?'

'No, we shall not be long. Mr MacNair is very evidently tired out. '

'Yes--yes. It is very tiring, London. '

When the door was closed, Helena stood a moment undecided, looking atSiegmund. He was lying in his arm-chair in a dispirited way, and lookingin the fire. As she gazed at him with troubled eyes, he happened toglance to her, with the same dark, curiously searching, disappointed eyes. 

'Shall I read to you?' she asked bitterly. 

'If you will, ' he replied. 

He sounded so indifferent, she could scarcely refrain from crying. Shewent and stood in front of him, looking down on him heavily. 

'What is it, dear?' she said. 

'You, ' he replied, smiling with a little grimace. 

'Why me?'

He smiled at her ironically, then closed his eyes. She slid into hisarms with a little moan. He took her on his knee, where she curled uplike a heavy white cat. She let him caress her with his mouth, and didnot move, but lay there curled up and quiet and luxuriously warm. 

He kissed her hair, which was beautifully fragrant of itself, and timeafter time drew between his lips one long, keen thread, as if he wouldravel out with his mouth her vigorous confusion of hair. His tendernessof love was like a soft flame lapping her voluptuously. 

After a while they heard the old lady go upstairs. Helena went verystill, and seemed to contract. Siegmund himself hesitated in hislove-making. All was very quiet. They could hear the faint breathing ofthe sea. Presently the cat, which had been sleeping in a chair, rose andwent to the door. 

'Shall I let her out?' said Siegmund. 

'Do!' said Helena, slipping from his knee. 'She goes out when the nightsare fine. '

Siegmund rose to set free the tabby. Hearing the front door open, MrsCurtiss called from upstairs: 'Is that you, dear?'

'I have just let Kitty out, ' said Siegmund. 

'Ah, thank you. Good night!' They heard the old lady lock her bedroomdoor. 

Helena was kneeling on the hearth. Siegmund softly closed the door, thenwaited a moment. His heart was beating fast. 

'Shall we sit by firelight?' he asked tentatively. 

'Yes--If you wish, ' she replied, very slowly, as if against her will. Hecarefully turned down the lamp, then blew out the light. His whole bodywas burning and surging with desire. 

The room was black and red with firelight. Helena shone ruddily as sheknelt, a bright, bowed figure, full in the glow. Now and then redstripes of firelight leapt across the walls. Siegmund, his face ruddy, advanced out of the shadows. 

He sat in the chair beside her, leaning forward, his hands hanging liketwo scarlet flowers listless in the fire glow, near to her, as she knelton the hearth, with head bowed down. One of the flowers awoke and spreadtowards her. It asked for her mutely. She was fascinated, scarcelyable to move. 

'Come, ' he pleaded softly. 

She turned, lifted her hands to him. The lace fell back, and her arms, bare to the shoulder, shone rosily. He saw her breasts raised towardshim. Her face was bent between her arms as she looked up at him afraid. Lit by the firelight, in her white, clinging dress, cowering between heruplifted arms, she seemed to be offering him herself to sacrifice. 

In an instant he was kneeling, and she was lying on his shoulder, abandoned to him. There was a good deal of sorrow in his joy. 

 * * * * *

It was eleven o'clock when Helena at last loosened Siegmund's arms, androse from the armchair where she lay beside him. She was very hot, feverish, and restless. For the last half-hour he had lain absolutelystill, with his heavy arms about her, making her hot. If she had notseen his eyes blue and dark, she would have thought him asleep. Shetossed in restlessness on his breast. 

'Am I not uneasy?' she had said, to make him speak. He had smiledgently. 

'It is wonderful to be as still as this, ' he said. She had lain tranquilwith him, then, for a few moments. To her there was something sacred inhis stillness and peace. She wondered at him; he was so different froman hour ago. How could he be the same! Now he was like the sea, blue andhazy in the morning, musing by itself. Before, he was burning, volcanic, as if he would destroy her. 

She had given him this new soft beauty. She was the earth in which hisstrange flowers grew. But she herself wondered at the flowers producedof her. He was so strange to her, so different from herself. What nextwould he ask of her, what new blossom would she rear in him then. Heseemed to grow and flower involuntarily. She merely helped toproduce him. 

Helena could not keep still; her body was full of strange sensations, ofinvoluntary recoil from shock. She was tired, but restless. All the timeSiegmund lay with his hot arms over her, himself so incomprehensible inhis base of blue, open-eyed slumber, she grew more breathless andunbearable to herself. 

At last she lifted his arm, and drew herself out of the chair. Siegmundlooked at her from his tranquillity. She put the damp hair from herforehead, breathed deep, almost panting. Then she glanced hauntingly ather flushed face in the mirror. With the same restlessness, she turnedto look at the night. The cool, dark, watery sea called to her. Shepushed back the curtain. 

The moon was wading deliciously through shallows of white cloud. Beyondthe trees and the few houses was the great concave of darkness, the sea, and the moonlight. The moon was there to put a cool hand of absolutionon her brow. 

'Shall we go out a moment, Siegmund?' she asked fretfully. 

'Ay, if you wish to, ' he answered, altogether willing. He was filledwith an easiness that would comply with her every wish. 

They went out softly, walked in silence to the bay. There they stood atthe head of the white, living moonpath, where the water whispered at thecasement of the land seductively. 

'It's the finest night I have seen, ' said Siegmund. Helena's eyessuddenly filled with tears, at his simplicity of happiness. 

'I like the moon on the water, ' she said. 

'I can hardly tell the one from the other, ' he replied simply. 'The seaseems to be poured out of the moon, and rocking in the hands of thecoast. They are all one, just as your eyes and hands and what you say, are all you. '

'Yes, ' she answered, thrilled. This was the Siegmund of her dream, andshe had created him. Yet there was a quiver of pain. He was beyond hernow, and did not need her. 

'I feel at home here, ' he said; 'as if I had come home where I wasbred. '

She pressed his hand hard, clinging to him. 

'We go an awful long way round, Helena, ' he said, 'just to find we'reall right. ' He laughed pleasantly. 'I have thought myself such anoutcast! How can one be outcast in one's own night, and the moon alwaysnaked to us, and the sky half her time in rags? What do we want?'

Helena did not know. Nor did she know what he meant. But she feltsomething of the harmony. 

'Whatever I have or haven't from now, ' he continued, 'the darkness is asort of mother, and the moon a sister, and the stars children, andsometimes the sea is a brother: and there's a family in one house, you see. '

'And I, Siegmund?' she said softly, taking him in all seriousness. Shelooked up at him piteously. He saw the silver of tears among the moonlitivory of her face. His heart tightened with tenderness, and he laughed, then bent to kiss her. 

'The key of the castle, ' he said. He put his face against hers, and felton his cheek the smart of her tears. 

'It's all very grandiose, ' he said comfortably, 'but it does fortonight, all this that I say. '

'It is true for ever, ' she declared. 

'In so far as tonight is eternal, ' he said. 

He remained, with the wetness of her cheek smarting on his, looking fromunder his brows at the white transport of the water beneath the moon. They stood folded together, gazing into the white heart of the night. 

_Chapter 6_

Siegmund woke with wonder in the morning. 'It is like the magic tales, 'he thought, as he realized where he was; 'and I am transported to a newlife, to realize my dream! Fairy-tales are true, after all. '

He had slept very deeply, so that he felt strangely new. He issued withdelight from the dark of sleep into the sunshine. Reaching out his hand, he felt for his watch. It was seven o'clock. The dew of a sleep-drenchednight glittered before his eyes. Then he laughed and forgot the night. 

The creeper was tapping at the window, as a little wind blew up thesunshine. Siegmund put out his hands for the unfolding happiness of themorning. Helena was in the next room, which she kept inviolate. Sparrowsin the creeper were shaking shadows of leaves among the sunshine;milk-white shallop of cloud stemmed bravely across the bright sky; thesea would be blossoming with a dewy shimmer of sunshine. 

Siegmund rose to look, and it was so. Also the houses, like white, andred, and black cattle, were wandering down the bay, with a mist ofsunshine between him and them. He leaned with his hands on thewindow-ledge looking out of the casement. The breeze ruffled his hair, blew down the neck of his sleeping-jacket upon his chest. He laughed, hastily threw on his clothes, and went out. 

There was no sign of Helena. He strode along, singing to himself, andspinning his towel rhythmically. A small path led him across a field anddown a zigzag in front of the cliffs. Some nooks, sheltered from thewind, were warm with sunshine, scented of honeysuckle and of thyme. Hetook a sprig of woodbine that was coloured of cream and butter. Thegrass wetted his brown shoes and his flannel trousers. Again, a freshbreeze put the scent of the sea in his uncovered hair. The cliff was atangle of flowers above and below, with poppies at the lip being blownout like red flame, and scabious leaning inquisitively to look down, andpink and white rest-harrow everywhere, very pretty. 

Siegmund stood at a bend where heath blossomed in shaggy lilac, wherethe sunshine but no wind came. He saw the blue bay curl away to thefar-off headland. A few birds, white and small, circled, dipped by thethin foam-edge of the water; a few ships dimmed the sea with silenttravelling; a few small people, dark or naked-white, moved below theswinging birds. 

He chose his bathing-place where the incoming tide had half covered astretch of fair, bright sand that was studded with rocks resemblingsquare altars, hollowed on top. He threw his clothes on a high rock. Itdelighted him to feel the fresh, soft fingers of the wind touching himand wandering timidly over his nakedness. He ran laughing over the sandto the sea, where he waded in, thrusting his legs noisily through theheavy green water. 

It was cold, and he shrank. For a moment he found himself thigh-deep, watching the horizontal stealing of a ship through the intolerableglitter, afraid to plunge. Laughing, he went under the cleargreen water. 

He was a poor swimmer. Sometimes a choppy wave swamped him, and he rosegasping, wringing the water from his eyes and nostrils, while he heavedand sank with the rocking of the waves that clasped his breast. Then hestooped again to resume his game with the sea. It is splendid to play, even at middle age, and the sea is a fine partner. 

With his eyes at the shining level of the water, he liked to peeracross, taking a seal's view of the cliffs as they confronted themorning. He liked to see the ships standing up on a bright floor; heliked to see the birds come down. 

But in his playing he drifted towards the spur of rock, where, as heswam, he caught his thigh on a sharp, submerged point. He frowned at thepain, at the sudden cruelty of the sea; then he thought no more of it, but ruffled his way back to the clear water, busily continuing his play. 

When he ran out on to the fair sand his heart, and brain, and body werein a turmoil. He panted, filling his breast with the air that wassparkled and tasted of the sea. As he shuddered a little, the wilfulpalpitations of his flesh pleased him, as if birds had fluttered againsthim. He offered his body to the morning, glowing with the sea's passion. The wind nestled in to him, the sunshine came on his shoulders like warmbreath. He delighted in himself. 

The rock before him was white and wet, like himself; it had a pool ofclear water, with shells and one rose anemone. 

'She would make so much of this little pool, ' he thought. And as hesmiled, he saw, very faintly, his own shadow in the water. It made himconscious of himself, seeming to look at him. He glanced at himself, athis handsome, white maturity. As he looked he felt the insidiouscreeping of blood down his thigh, which was marked with a long redslash. Siegmund watched the blood travel over the bright skin. It wounditself redly round the rise of his knee. 

'That is I, that creeping red, and this whiteness I pride myself on isI, and my black hair, and my blue eyes are I. It is a weird thing to bea person. What makes me myself, among all these?'

Feeling chill, he wiped himself quickly. 

'I am at my best, at my strongest, ' he said proudly to himself. 'Sheought to be rejoiced at me, but she is not; she rejects me as if I werea baboon under my clothing. '

He glanced at his whole handsome maturity, the firm plating of hisbreasts, the full thighs, creatures proud in themselves. Only he wasmarred by the long raw scratch, which he regretted deeply. 

'If I was giving her myself, I wouldn't want that blemish on me, ' hethought. 

He wiped the blood from the wound. It was nothing. 

'She thinks ten thousand times more of that little pool, with a bit ofpink anemone and some yellow weed, than of me. But, by Jove! I'd rathersee her shoulders and breast than all heaven and earth put togethercould show. .. . Why doesn't she like me?' he thought as he dressed. Itwas his physical self thinking. 

After dabbling his feet in a warm pool, he returned home. Helena was inthe dining-room arranging a bowl of purple pansies. She looked up at himrather heavily as he stood radiant on the threshold. He put her at herease. It was a gay, handsome boy she had to meet, not a man, strange andinsistent. She smiled on him with tender dignity. 

'You have bathed?' she said, smiling, and looking at his damp, ruffledblack hair. She shrank from his eyes, but he was quite unconscious. 

'You have not bathed!' he said; then bent to kiss her. She smelt thebrine in his hair. 

'No; I bathe later, ' she replied. 'But what--'

Hesitating, she touched the towel, then looked up at him anxiously. 

'It _is_ blood?' she said. 

'I grazed my thigh--nothing at all, ' he replied. 

'Are you sure?'

He laughed. 

'The towel looks bad enough, ' she said. 

'It's an alarmist, ' he laughed. 

She looked in concern at him, then turned aside. 

'Breakfast is quite ready, ' she said. 

'And I for breakfast--but shall I do?'

She glanced at him. He was without a collar, so his throat was bareabove the neck-band of his flannel shirt. Altogether she disapproved ofhis slovenly appearance. He was usually so smart in his dress. 

'I would not trouble, ' she said almost sarcastically. 

Whistling, he threw the towel on a chair. 

'How did you sleep?' she asked gravely, as she watched him beginning toeat. 

'Like the dead--solid, ' he replied'. 'And you?'

'Oh, pretty well, thanks, ' she said, rather piqued that he had slept sodeeply, whilst she had tossed, and had called his name in a torture ofsleeplessness. 

'I haven't slept like that for years, ' he said enthusiastically. Helenasmiled gently on him. The charm of his handsome, healthy zest came overher. She liked his naked throat and his shirt-breast, which suggestedthe breast of the man beneath it. She was extraordinarily happy, withhim so bright. The dark-faced pansies, in a little crowd, seemed gailywinking a golden eye at her. 

After breakfast, while Siegmund dressed, she went down to the sea. Shedwelled, as she passed, on all tiny, pretty things--on the barbaricyellow ragwort, and pink convolvuli; on all the twinkling of flowers, and dew, and snail-tracks drying in the sun. Her walk was one longlingering. More than the spaces, she loved the nooks, and fancy morethan imagination. 

She wanted to see just as she pleased, without any of humanity'sprevious vision for spectacles. So she knew hardly any flower's name, nor perceived any of the relationships, nor cared a jot about anadaptation or a modification. It pleased her that the lowest brownyflorets of the clover hung down; she cared no more. She clothedeverything in fancy. 

'That yellow flower hadn't time to be brushed and combed by the fairiesbefore dawn came. It is tousled . .. ' so she thought to herself. The pinkconvolvuli were fairy horns or telephones from the day fairies to thenight fairies. The rippling sunlight on the sea was the Rhine maidensspreading their bright hair to the sun. That was her favourite form ofthinking. The value of all things was in the fancy they evoked. She didnot care for people; they were vulgar, ugly, and stupid, as a rule. 

Her sense of satisfaction was complete as she leaned on the lowsea-wall, spreading her fingers to warm on the stones, concocting magicout of the simple morning. She watched the indolent chasing of waveletsround the small rocks, the curling of the deep blue water round thewater-shadowed reefs. 

'This is very good, ' she said to herself. 'This is eternally cool, andclean and fresh. It could never be spoiled by satiety. '

She tried to wash herself with the white and blue morning, to clear awaythe soiling of the last night's passion. 

The sea played by itself, intent on its own game. Its aloofness, itsself-sufficiency, are its great charm. The sea does not give and take, like the land and the sky. It has no traffic with the world. It spendsits passion upon itself. Helena was something like the sea, self-sufficient and careless of the rest. 

Siegmund came bareheaded, his black hair ruffling to the wind, his eyesshining warmer than the sea-like cornflowers rather, his limbs swingingbackward and forward like the water. Together they leaned on the wall, warming the four white hands upon the grey bleached stone as theywatched the water playing. 

When Siegmund had Helena near, he lost the ache, the yearning towardssomething, which he always felt otherwise. She seemed to connect himwith the beauty of things, as if she were the nerve through which hereceived intelligence of the sun, and wind, and sea, and of the moon andthe darkness. Beauty she never felt herself came to him through her. Itis that makes love. He could always sympathize with the wistful littleflowers, and trees lonely in their crowds, and wild, sad seabirds. Inthese things he recognized the great yearning, the ache outwards towardssomething, with which he was ordinarily burdened. But with Helena, inthis large sea-morning, he was whole and perfect as the day. 

'Will it be fine all day?' he asked, when a cloud came over. 

'I don't know, ' she replied in her gentle, inattentive manner, as if shedid not care at all. 'I think it will be a mixed day--cloud andsun--more sun than cloud. '

She looked up gravely to see if he agreed. He turned from frowning atthe cloud to smile at her. He seemed so bright, teeming with life. 

'I like a bare blue sky, ' he said; 'sunshine that you seem to stir aboutas you walk. '

'It is warm enough here, even for you, ' she smiled. 

'Ah, here!' he answered, putting his face down to receive the radiationfrom the stone, letting his fingers creep towards Helena's. She laughed, and captured his fingers, pressing them into her hand. For nearly anhour they remained thus in the still sunshine by the sea-wall, tillHelena began to sigh, and to lift her face to the little breeze thatwandered down from the west. She fled as soon from warmth as from cold. Physically, she was always so; she shrank from anything extreme. Butpsychically she was an extremist, and a dangerous one. 

They climbed the hill to the fresh-breathing west. On the highest pointof land stood a tall cross, railed in by a red iron fence. They read theinscription. 

'That's all right--but a vilely ugly railing!' exclaimed Siegmund. 

'Oh, they'd have to fence in Lord Tennyson's white marble, ' said Helena, rather indefinitely. 

He interpreted her according to his own idea. 

'Yes, he did belittle great things, didn't he?' said Siegmund. 

'Tennyson!' she exclaimed. 

'Not peacocks and princesses, but the bigger things. '

'I shouldn't say so, ' she declared. 

He sounded indeterminate, but was not really so. 

They wandered over the downs westward, among the wind. As they followedthe headland to the Needles, they felt the breeze from the wings of thesea brushing them, and heard restless, poignant voices screaming belowthe cliffs. Now and again a gull, like a piece of spume flung up, roseover the cliff's edge, and sank again. Now and again, as the path dippedin a hollow, they could see the low, suspended intertwining of the birdspassing in and out of the cliff shelter. 

These savage birds appealed to all the poetry and yearning in Helena. They fascinated her, they almost voiced her. She crept nearer and nearerthe edge, feeling she must watch the gulls thread out in flakes of whiteabove the weed-black rocks. Siegmund stood away back, anxiously. Hewould not dare to tempt Fate now, having too strong a sense of deathto risk it. 

'Come back, dear. Don't go so near, ' he pleaded, following as close ashe might. She heard the pain and appeal in his voice. It thrilled her, and she went a little nearer. What was death to her but one of hersymbols, the death of which the sagas talk--something grand, andsweeping, and dark. 

Leaning forward, she could see the line of grey sand and the line offoam broken by black rocks, and over all the gulls, stirring round likefroth on a pot, screaming in chorus. 

She watched the beautiful birds, heard the pleading of Siegmund, and shethrilled with pleasure, toying with his keen anguish. 

Helena came smiling to Siegmund, saying:

'They look so fine down there. '

He fastened his hands upon her, as a relief from his pain. He was filledwith a keen, strong anguish of dread, like a presentiment. She laughedas he gripped her. 

They went searching for a way of descent. At last Siegmund inquired ofthe coastguard the nearest way down the cliff. He was pointed to the'Path of the Hundred Steps'. 

'When is a hundred not a hundred?' he said sceptically, as theydescended the dazzling white chalk. There were sixty-eight steps. Helenalaughed at his exactitude. 

'It must be a love of round numbers, ' he said. 

'No doubt, ' she laughed. He took the thing so seriously. 

'Or of exaggeration, ' he added. 

There was a shelving beach of warm white sand, bleached soft as velvet. A sounding of gulls filled the dark recesses of the headland; a lowchatter of shingle came from where the easy water was breaking; theconfused, shell-like murmur of the sea between the folded cliffs. Siegmund and Helena lay side by side upon the dry sand, small as tworesting birds, while thousands of gulls whirled in a white-flaked stormabove them, and the great cliffs towered beyond, and high up over thecliffs the multitudinous clouds were travelling, a vast caravan _enroute_. Amidst the journeying of oceans and clouds and the circlingflight of heavy spheres, lost to sight in the sky, Siegmund and Helena, two grains of life in the vast movement, were travelling a momentside by side. 

They lay on the beach like a grey and a white sea-bird together. Thelazy ships that were idling down the Solent observed the cliffs and theboulders, but Siegmund and Helena were too little. They lay ignored andinsignificant, watching through half-closed fingers the diverse caravanof Day go past. They lay with their latticed fingers over their eyes, looking out at the sailing of ships across their vision of blue water. 

'Now, that one with the greyish sails--' Siegmund was saying. 

'Like a housewife of forty going placidly round with the duster--yes?'interrupted Helena. 

'That is a schooner. You see her four sails, and--'

He continued to classify the shipping, until he was interrupted by thewicked laughter of Helena. 

'That is right, I am sure, ' he protested. 

'I won't contradict you, ' she laughed, in a tone which showed him heknew even less of the classifying of ships than she did. 

'So you have lain there amusing yourself at my expense all the time?' hesaid, not knowing in the least why she laughed. They turned and lookedat one another, blue eyes smiling and wavering as the beach wavers inthe heat. Then they closed their eyes with sunshine. 

Drowsed by the sun, and the white sand, and the foam, their thoughtsslept like butterflies on the flowers of delight. But cold shadowsstartled them up. 

'The clouds are coming, ' he said regretfully. 

'Yes; but the wind is quite strong enough for them, ' she answered, 'Look at the shadows--like blots floating away. Don't they devour thesunshine?'

'It is quite warm enough here, ' she said, nestling in to him. 

'Yes; but the sting is missing. I like to feel the warmth biting in. '

'No, I do not. To be cosy is enough. '

'I like the sunshine on me, real, and manifest, and tangible. I feellike a seed that has been frozen for ages. I want to be bitten by thesunshine. '

She leaned over and kissed him. The sun came bright-footed over thewater, leaving a shining print on Siegmund's face. He lay, withhalf-closed eyes, sprawled loosely on the sand. Looking at his limbs, she imagined he must be heavy, like the bounders. She sat over him, withher fingers stroking his eyebrows, that were broad and rather arched. Helay perfectly still, in a half-dream. 

Presently she laid her head on his breast, and remained so, watching thesea, and listening to his heart-beats. The throb was strong and deep. Itseemed to go through the whole island and the whole afternoon, and itfascinated her: so deep, unheard, with its great expulsions of life. Hadthe world a heart? Was there also deep in the world a great God thuddingout waves of life, like a great heart, unconscious? It frightened her. This was the God she knew not, as she knew not this Siegmund. It was sodifferent from the half-shut eyes with black lashes, and the winsome, shapely nose. And the heart of the world, as she heard it, could not bethe same as the curling splash of retreat of the little sleepy waves. She listened for Siegmund's soul, but his heart overbeat all othersound, thudding powerfully. 

_Chapter 7_

Siegmund woke to the muffled firing of guns on the sea. He looked acrossat the shaggy grey water in wonder. Then he turned to Helena. 

'I suppose, ' he said, 'they are saluting the Czar. Poor beggar!'

'I was afraid they would wake you, ' she smiled. 

They listened again to the hollow, dull sound of salutes from across thewater and the downs. 

The day had gone grey. They decided to walk, down below, to the nextbay. 

'The tide is coming in, ' said Helena. 

'But this broad strip of sand hasn't been wet for months. It's as softas pepper, ' he replied. 

They laboured along the shore, beside the black, sinuous line ofshrivelled fucus. The base of the cliff was piled with chalk debris. Onthe other side was the level plain of the sea. Hand in hand, alone andovershadowed by huge cliffs, they toiled on. The waves staggered in, andfell, overcome at the end of the race. 

Siegmund and Helena neared a headland, sheer as the side of a house, itsbase weighted with a tremendous white mass of boulders, that the greensea broke amongst with a hollow sound, followed by a sharp hiss ofwithdrawal. The lovers had to cross this desert of white boulders, thatglistened in smooth skins uncannily. But Siegmund saw the waves werealmost at the wall of the headland. Glancing back, he saw the otherheadland white-dashed at the base with foam. He and Helena must hurry, or they would be prisoned on the thin crescent of strand still remainingbetween the great wall and the water. 

The cliffs overhead oppressed him--made him feel trapped and helpless. He was caught by them in a net of great boulders, while the sea fumbledfor him. But he and Helena. She laboured strenuously beside him, blindedby the skin-like glisten of the white rock. 

'I think I will rest awhile, ' she said. 

'No, come along, ' he begged. 

'My dear, ' she laughed, 'there is tons of this shingle to buttress usfrom the sea. '

He looked at the waves curving and driving maliciously at the boulders. It would be ridiculous to be trapped. 

'Look at this black wood, ' she said. 'Does the sea really char it?'

'Let us get round the corner, ' he begged. 

'Really, Siegmund, the sea is not so anxious to take us, ' she saidironically. 

When they rounded the first point, they found themselves in a small bayjutted out to sea; the front of the headland was, as usual, grooved. This bay was pure white at the base, from its great heaped mass ofshingle. With the huge concave of the cliff behind, the foothold ofmassed white boulders, and the immense arc of the sea in front, Helenawas delighted. 

'This is fine, Siegmund!' she said, halting and facing west. 

Smiling ironically, he sat down on a boulder. They were quite alone, inthis great white niche thrust out to sea. Here, he could see, the tidewould beat the base of the wall. It came plunging not far fromtheir feet. 

'Would you really like to travel beyond the end?' he asked. 

She looked round quickly, thrilled, then answered as if in rebuke:

'This is a fine place. I should like to stay here an hour. '

'And then where?'

'Then? Oh, then, I suppose, it would be tea-time. '

'Tea on brine and pink anemones, with Daddy Neptune. '

She looked sharply at the outjutting capes. The sea did foam perilouslynear their bases. 

'I suppose it _is_ rather risky, ' she said; and she turned, begansilently to clamber forwards. 

He followed; she should set the pace. 

'I have no doubt there's plenty of room, really, ' he said. 'The sea onlylooks near. '

But she toiled on intently. Now it was a question of danger, not ofinconvenience, Siegmund felt elated. The waves foamed up, as it seemed, against the exposed headland, from which the massive shingle had beenswept back. Supposing they could not get by? He began to smilecuriously. He became aware of the tremendous noise of waters, of theslight shudder of the shingle when a wave struck it, and he alwayslaughed to himself. Helena laboured on in silence; he kept just behindher. The point seemed near, but it took longer than they thought. Theyhad against them the tremendous cliff, the enormous weight of shingle, and the swinging sea. The waves struck louder, booming fearfully; wind, sweeping round the corner, wet their faces. Siegmund hoped they were cutoff, and hoped anxiously the way was clear. The smile became set onhis face. 

Then he saw there was a ledge or platform at the base of the cliff, andit was against this the waves broke. They climbed the side of thisridge, hurried round to the front. There the wind caught them, wet andfurious; the water raged below. Between the two Helena shrank, wilted. She took hold of Siegmund. The great, brutal wave flung itself at therock, then drew back for another heavy spring. Fume and spray were spunon the wind like smoke. The roaring thud of the waves reminded Helena ofa beating heart. She clung closer to him, as her hair was blown outdamp, and her white dress flapped in the wet wind. Always, against therock, came the slow thud of the waves, like a great heart beating underthe breast. There was something brutal about it that she could not bear. She had no weapon against brute force. 

She glanced up at Siegmund. Tiny drops of mist greyed his eyebrows. Hewas looking out to sea, screwing up his eyes, and smiling brutally. Herface became heavy and sullen. He was like the heart and the brute sea, just here; he was not her Siegmund. She hated the brute in him. 

Turning suddenly, she plunged over the shingle towards the wide, populous bay. He remained alone, grinning at the smashing turmoil, careless of her departure. He would easily catch her. 

When at last he turned from the wrestling water, he had spent hissavagery, and was sad. He could never take part in the great battle ofaction. It was beyond him. Many things he had let slip by. His life waswhittled down to only a few interests, only a few necessities. Evenhere, he had but Helena, and through her the rest. After thisweek--well, that was vague. He left it in the dark, dreading it. 

And Helena was toiling over the rough beach alone. He saw her smallfigure bowed as she plunged forward. It smote his heart with the keenesttenderness. She was so winsome, a playmate with beauty and fancy. Whywas he cruel to her because she had not his own bitter wisdom ofexperience? She was young and naïve, and should he be angry with her forthat? His heart was tight at the thought of her. She would have tosuffer also, because of him. 

He hurried after her. Not till they had nearly come to a little greenmound, where the downs sloped, and the cliffs were gone, did he catchher up. Then he took her hand as they walked. 

They halted on the green hillock beyond the sand, and, without a word, he folded her in his arms. Both were put of breath. He clasped herclose, seeming to rock her with his strong panting. She felt his bodylifting into her, and sinking away. It seemed to force a rhythm, a newpulse, in her. Gradually, with a fine, keen thrilling, she melted downon him, like metal sinking on a mould. He was sea and sunlight mixed, heaving, warm, deliciously strong. 

Siegmund exulted. At last she was moulded to him in pure passion. 

They stood folded thus for some time. Then Helena raised her burningface, and relaxed. She was throbbing with strange elation andsatisfaction. 

'It might as well have been the sea as any other way, dear, ' she said, startling both of them. The speech went across their thoughtfulness likea star flying into the night, from nowhere. She had no idea why she saidit. He pressed his mouth on hers. 'Not for you, ' he thought, by reflex. 'You can't go that way yet. ' But he said nothing, strained her verytightly, and kept her lips. 

They were roused by the sound of voices. Unclasping, they went to walkat the fringe of the water. The tide was creeping back. Siegmundstooped, and from among the water's combings picked up an electric-lightbulb. It lay in some weed at the base of a rock. He held it in his handto Helena. Her face lighted with a curious pleasure. She took the thingdelicately from his hand, fingered it with her exquisite softness. 

'Isn't it remarkable!' she exclaimed joyously. 'The sea must be very, very gentle--and very kind. '

'Sometimes, ' smiled Siegmund. 

'But I did not think it could be so fine-fingered, ' she said. Shebreathed on the glass bulb till it looked like a dim magnolia bud; sheinhaled its fine savour. 

'It would not have treated _you_ so well, ' he said. She looked at himwith heavy eyes. Then she returned to her bulb. Her fingers were verysmall and very pink. She had the most delicate touch in the world, likea faint feel of silk. As he watched her lifting her fingers from off theglass, then gently stroking it, his blood ran hot. He watched her, waited upon her words and movements attentively. 

'It is a graceful act on the sea's part, ' she said. 'Wotan is soclumsy--he knocks over the bowl, and flap-flap-flap go the gaspingfishes, _pizzicato_!--but the sea--'

Helena's speech was often difficult to render into plain terms. She wasnot lucid. 

'But life's so full of anti-climax, ' she concluded. Siegmund smiledsoftly at her. She had him too much in love to disagree or to examineher words. 

'There's no reckoning with life, and no reckoning with the sea. The onlyway to get on with both is to be as near a vacuum as possible, andfloat, ' he jested. It hurt her that he was flippant. She proceeded toforget he had spoken. 

There were three children on the beach. Helena had handed him back thesenseless bauble, not able to throw it away. Being a father:

'I will give it to the children, ' he said. 

She looked up at him, loved him for the thought. 

Wandering hand in hand, for it pleased them both to own each otherpublicly, after years of conventional distance, they came to a littlegirl who was bending over a pool. Her black hair hung in long snakes tothe water. She stood up, flung back her locks to see them as theyapproached. In one hand she clasped some pebbles. 

'Would you like this? I found it down there, ' said Siegmund, offeringher the bulb. 

She looked at him with grave blue eyes and accepted his gift. Evidentlyshe was not going to say anything. 

'The sea brought it all the way from the mainland without breaking it, 'said Helena, with the interesting intonation some folk use to children. 

The girl looked at her. 

'The waves put it out of their lap on to some seaweed with such carefulfingers--'

The child's eyes brightened. 

'The tide-line is full of treasures, ' said Helena, smiling. 

The child answered her smile a little. 

Siegmund had walked away. 

'What beautiful eyes she had!' said Helena. 

'Yes, ' he replied. 

She looked up at him. He felt her searching him tenderly with her eyes. But he could not look back at her. She took his hand and kissed it, knowing he was thinking of his own youngest child. 

_Chapter 8_

The way home lay across country, through deep little lanes where thelate foxgloves sat seriously, like sad hounds; over open downlands, rough with gorse and ling, and through pocketed hollows of brackenand trees. 

They came to a small Roman Catholic church in the fields. There thecarved Christ looked down on the dead whose sleeping forms made moundsunder the coverlet. Helena's heart was swelling with emotion. All theyearning and pathos of Christianity filled her again. 

The path skirted the churchyard wall, so that she had on the one handthe sleeping dead, and on the other Siegmund, strong and vigorous, butwalking in the old, dejected fashion. She felt a rare tenderness andadmiration for him. It was unusual for her to be so humble-minded, butthis evening she felt she must minister to him, and be submissive. 

She made him stop to look at the graves. Suddenly, as they stood, shekissed him, clasped him fervently, roused him till his passion burnedaway his heaviness, and he seemed tipped with life, his face glowing asif soon he would burst alight. Then she was satisfied, and could laugh. 

As they went through the fir copse, listening to the birds like a familyassembled and chattering at home in the evening, listening to the lightswish of the wind, she let Siegmund predominate; he set the swing oftheir motion; she rested on him like a bird on a swaying bough. 

They argued concerning the way. Siegmund, as usual, submitted to her. They went quite wrong. As they retraced their steps, stealthily, througha poultry farm whose fowls were standing in forlorn groups, once moredismayed by evening, Helena's pride battled with her new subjugation toSiegmund. She walked head down, saying nothing. He also was silent, buthis heart was strong in him. Somewhere in the distance a band wasplaying 'The Watch on the Rhine'. 

As they passed the beeches and were near home, Helena said, to try him, and to strike a last blow for her pride:

'I wonder what next Monday will bring us. '

'Quick curtain, ' he answered joyously. He was looking down and smilingat her with such careless happiness that she loved him. He was wonderfulto her. She loved him, was jealous of every particle of him that evadedher. She wanted to sacrifice to him, make herself a burning altar tohim, and she wanted to possess him. 

The hours that would be purely their own came too slowly for her. 

That night she met his passion with love. It was not his passion shewanted, actually. But she desired that he should want _her_ madly, andthat he should have all--everything. It was a wonderful night to him. Itrestored in him the full 'will to live'. But she felt it destroyed her. Her soul seemed blasted. 

At seven o'clock in the morning Helena lay in the deliciously coolwater, while small waves ran up the beach full and clear and foamless, continuing perfectly in their flicker the rhythm of the night's passion. Nothing, she felt, had ever been so delightful as this cool waterrunning over her. She lay and looked out on the shining sea. All things, it seemed, were made of sunshine more or less soiled. The cliffs roseout of the shining waves like clouds of strong, fine texture, and rocksalong the shore were the dapplings of a bright dawn. The coarseness wasfused out of the world, so that sunlight showed in the veins of themorning cliffs and the rocks. Yea, everything ran with sunshine, as weare full of blood, and plants are tissued from green-gold, glisteningsap. Substance and solidity were shadows that the morning cast rounditself to make itself tangible: as she herself was a shadow, cast bythat fragment of sunshine, her soul, over its inefficiency. 

She remembered to have seen the bats flying low over a burnished pool atsunset, and the web of their wings had burned in scarlet flickers, asthey stretched across the light. Winged momentarily on bits of tissuedflame, threaded with blood, the bats had flickered a secret to her. 

Now the cliffs were like wings uplifted, and the morning was comingdimly through them. She felt the wings of all the world upraised againstthe morning in a flashing, multitudinous flight. The world itself wasflying. Sunlight poured on the large round world till she fancied it aheavy bee humming on its iridescent atmosphere across a vast airof sunshine. 

She lay and rode the fine journey. Sunlight liquid in the water made thewaves heavy, golden, and rich with a velvety coolness like cowslips. Herfeet fluttered in the shadowy underwater. Her breast came out bright asthe breast of a white bird. 

Where was Siegmund? she wondered. He also was somewhere among the seaand the sunshine, white and playing like a bird, shining like a vivid, restless speck of sunlight. She struck the water, smiling, feeling alongwith him. They two were the owners of this morning, as a pair of wild, large birds inhabiting an empty sea. 

Siegmund had found a white cave welling with green water, brilliant andfull of life as mounting sap. The white rock glimmered through thewater, and soon Siegmund shimmered also in the living green of the sea, like pale flowers trembling upward. 

'The water, ' said Siegmund, 'is as full of life as I am, ' and he pressedforward his breast against it. He swam very well that morning; he hadmore wilful life than the sea, so he mastered it laughingly with hisarms, feeling a delight in his triumph over the waves. Venturingrecklessly in his new pride, he swam round the corner of the rock, through an archway, lofty and spacious, into a passage where the waterran like a flood of green light over the skin-white bottom. Suddenly heemerged in the brilliant daylight of the next tiny scoop of a bay. 

There he arrived like a pioneer, for the bay was inaccessible from theland. He waded out of the green, cold water on to sand that was pure asthe shoulders of Helena, out of the shadow of the archway into thesunlight, on to the glistening petal of this blossom of a sea-bay. 

He did not know till he felt the sunlight how the sea had drunk with itscold lips deeply of his warmth. Throwing himself down on the sand thatwas soft and warm as white fur, he lay glistening wet, panting, swellingwith glad pride at having conquered also this small, inaccessiblesea-cave, creeping into it like a white bee into a white virgin blossomthat had waited, how long, for its bee. 

The sand was warm to his breast, and his belly, and his arms. It waslike a great body he cleaved to. Almost, he fancied, he felt it heavingunder him in its breathing. Then he turned his face to the sun, andlaughed. All the while, he hugged the warm body of the sea-bay beneathhim. He spread his hands upon the sand; he took it in handfuls, and letit run smooth, warm, delightful, through his fingers. 

'Surely, ' he said to himself, 'it is like Helena;' and he laid his handsagain on the warm body of the shore, let them wander, discovering, gathering all the warmth, the softness, the strange wonder of smoothwarm pebbles, then shrinking from the deep weight of cold his handencountered as he burrowed under the surface wrist-deep. In the end hefound the cold mystery of the deep sand also thrilling. He pushed in hishands again and deeper, enjoying the almost hurt of the dark, heavycoldness. For the sun and the white flower of the bay were breathing andkissing him dry, were holding him in their warm concave, like a bee in aflower, like himself on the bosom of Helena, and flowing like the warmthof her breath in his hair came the sunshine, breathing near andlovingly; yet, under all, was this deep mass of cold, that the softnessand warmth merely floated upon. 

Siegmund lay and clasped the sand, and tossed it in handfuls till overhim he was all hot and cloyed. Then he rose and looked at himself andlaughed. The water was swaying reproachfully against the steep pebblesbelow, murmuring like a child that it was not fair--it was not fair heshould abandon his playmate. Siegmund laughed, and began to rub himselffree of the clogging sand. He found himself strangely dry and smooth. Hetossed more dry sand, and more, over himself, busy and intent like achild playing some absorbing game with itself. Soon his body was dry andwarm and smooth as a camomile flower. He was, however, greyed andsmeared with sand-dust. Siegmund looked at himself with disapproval, though his body was full of delight and his hands glad with the touch ofhimself. He wanted himself clean. He felt the sand thick in his hair, even in his moustache. He went painfully over the pebbles till he foundhimself on the smooth rock bottom. Then he soused himself, and shook hishead in the water, and washed and splashed and rubbed himself with hishands assiduously. He must feel perfectly clean and free--fresh, as ifhe had washed away all the years of soilure in this morning's sea andsun and sand. It was the purification. Siegmund became again a happypriest of the sun. He felt as if all the dirt of misery were soaked outof him, as he might soak clean a soiled garment in the sea, and bleachit white on the sunny shore. So white and sweet and tissue-clean hefelt--full of lightness and grace. 

The garden in front of their house, where Helena was waiting for him, was long and crooked, with a sunken flagstone pavement running up to thedoor by the side of the lawn. On either hand the high fence of thegarden was heavy with wild clematis and honeysuckle. Helena satsideways, with a map spread out on her bench under the bushy littlelaburnum tree, tracing the course of their wanderings. It was verystill. There was just a murmur of bees going in and out the brilliantlittle porches of nasturtium flowers. The nasturtium leaf-coins stoodcool and grey; in their delicate shade, underneath in the greentwilight, a few flowers shone their submerged gold and scarlet. Therewas a faint scent of mignonette. Helena, like a white butterfly in theshade, her two white arms for antennae stretching firmly to the bench, leaned over her map. She was busy, very busy, out of sheer happiness. She traced word after word, and evoked scene after scene. As shediscovered a name, she conjured up the place. As she moved to the nextmark she imagined the long path lifting and falling happily. 

She was waiting for Siegmund, yet his hand upon the latch startled her. She rose suddenly, in agitation. Siegmund was standing in the sunshineat the gate. They greeted each other across the tall roses. 

When Siegmund was holding her hand, he said, softly laughing:

'You have come out of the water very beautiful this morning. '

She laughed. She was not beautiful, but she felt so at that moment. Sheglanced up at him, full of love and gratefulness. 

'And you, ' she murmured, in a still tone, as if it were almostsacrilegiously unnecessary to say it. 

Siegmund was glad. He rejoiced to be told he was beautiful. After a fewmoments of listening to the bees and breathing the mignonette, he said:

'I found a little white bay, just like you--a virgin bay. I had to swimthere. '

'Oh!' she said, very interested in him, not in the fact. 

'It seemed just like you. Many things seem like you, ' he said. 

She laughed again in her joyous fashion, and the reed-like vibrationcame into her voice. 

'I saw the sun through the cliffs, and the sea, and you, ' she said. 

He did not understand. He looked at her searchingly. She was white andstill and inscrutable. Then she looked up at him; her earnest eyes, thatwould not flinch, gazed straight into him. He trembled, and things allswept into a blur. After she had taken away her eyes he foundhimself saying:

'You know, I felt as if I were the first man to discover things: likeAdam when he opened the first eyes in the world. '

'I saw the sunshine in you, ' repeated Helena quietly, looking at himwith her eyes heavy with meaning. 

He laughed again, not understanding, but feeling she meant love. 

'No, but you have altered everything, ' he said. 

The note of wonder, of joy, in his voice touched her almost beyondself-control. She caught his hand and pressed it; then quickly kissedit. He became suddenly grave. 

'I feel as if it were right--you and me, Helena--so, even righteous. Itis so, isn't it? And the sea and everything, they all seem with us. Doyou think so?'

Looking at her, he found her eyes full of tears. He bent and kissed her, and she pressed his head to her bosom. He was very glad. 

_Chapter 9_

The day waxed hot. A few little silver tortoises of cloud had crawledacross the desert of sky, and hidden themselves. The chalk roads werewhite, quivering with heat. Helena and Siegmund walked eastwardbareheaded under the sunshine. They felt like two insects in the nicheof a hot hearth as they toiled along the deep road. A few poppies hereand there among the wild rye floated scarlet in sunshine likeblood-drops on green water. Helena recalled Francis Thompson's poems, which Siegmund had never read. She repeated what she knew, and laughed, thinking what an ineffectual pale shadow of a person Thompson must havebeen. She looked at Siegmund, walking in large easiness beside her. 

'Artists are supremely unfortunate persons, ' she announced. 

'Think of Wagner, ' said Siegmund, lifting his face to the hot brightheaven, and drinking the heat with his blinded face. All states seemedmeagre, save his own. He recalled people who had loved, and he pitiedthem--dimly, drowsily, without pain. 

They came to a place where they might gain access to the shore by a pathdown a landslip. As they descended through the rockery, yellow withragwort, they felt themselves dip into the inert, hot air of the bay. The living atmosphere of the uplands was left overhead. Among the rocksof the sand, white as if smelted, the heat glowed and quivered. Helenasat down and took off her shoes. She walked on the hot, glistening sandtill her feet were delightfully, almost intoxicatingly scorched. Thenshe ran into the water to cool them. Siegmund and she paddled in thelight water, pensively watching the haste of the ripples, like crystalbeetles, running over the white outline of their feet; looking out onthe sea that rose so near to them, dwarfing them by its far reach. 

For a short time they flitted silently in the water's edge. Then theresettled down on them a twilight of sleep, the little hush that closesthe doors and draws the blinds of the house after a festival. Theywandered out across the beach above high-water mark, where they sat downtogether on the sand, leaning back against a flat brown stone, Siegmundwith the sunshine on his forehead, Helena drooping close to him, in hisshadow. Then the hours ride by unnoticed, making no sound as they go. The sea creeps nearer, nearer, like a snake which watches two birdsasleep. It may not disturb them, but sinks back, ceasing to look at themwith its bright eyes. 

Meanwhile the flowers of their passion were softly shed, as poppies fallat noon, and the seed of beauty ripened rapidly within them. Dreams camelike a wind through, their souls, drifting off with the seed-dust ofbeautiful experience which they had ripened, to fertilize the souls ofothers withal. In them the sea and the sky and ships had mingled andbred new blossoms of the torrid heat of their love. And the seed of suchblossoms was shaken as they slept, into the hand of God, who held it inHis palm preciously; then scattered it again, to produce new splendidblooms of beauty. 

A little breeze came down the cliffs. Sleep lightened the lovers oftheir experience; new buds were urged in their souls as they lay in ashadowed twilight, at the porch of death. The breeze fanned the face ofHelena; a coolness wafted on her throat. As the afternoon wore on sherevived. Quick to flag, she was easy to revive, like a white pansy flunginto water. She shivered lightly and rose. 

Strange, it seemed to her, to rise from the brown stone into life again. She felt beautifully refreshed. All around was quick as a garden wet inthe early morning of June. She took her hair and loosened it, shook itfree from sand, spread, and laughed like a fringed poppy that opensitself to the sun. She let the wind comb through its soft fingers thetangles of her hair. Helena loved the wind. She turned to it, and tookits kisses on her face and throat. 

Siegmund lay still, looking up at her. The changes in him were deeper, like alteration in his tissue. His new buds came slowly, and were of afresh type. He lay smiling at her. At last he said:

'You look now as if you belonged to the sea. '

'I do; and some day I shall go back to it, ' she replied. 

For to her at that moment the sea was a great lover, like Siegmund, butmore impersonal, who would receive her when Siegmund could not. Sherejoiced momentarily in the fact. Siegmund looked at her and continuedsmiling. His happiness was budded firm and secure. 

'Come!' said Helena, holding out her hand. 

He rose somewhat reluctantly from his large, fruitful inertia. 

_Chapter 10_

Siegmund carried the boots and the shoes while they wandered over thesand to the rocks. There was a delightful sense of risk in scramblingwith bare feet over the smooth irregular jumble of rocks. Helena laughedsuddenly from fear as she felt herself slipping. Siegmund's heart wasleaping like a child's with excitement as he stretched forward, himselfvery insecure, to succour her. Thus they travelled slowly. Often shecalled to him to come and look in the lovely little rock-pools, duskywith blossoms of red anemones and brown anemones that seemed nothing butshadows, and curtained with green of finest sea-silk. Siegmund loved topoke the white pebbles, and startle the little ghosts of crabs in ashadowy scuttle through the weed. He would tease the expectant anemones, causing them to close suddenly over his finger. But Helena liked towatch without touching things. Meanwhile the sun was slanting behind thecross far away to the west, and the light was swimming in silver andgold upon the lacquered water. At last Siegmund looked doubtfully at twomiles more of glistening, gilded boulders. Helena was seated on a stone, dabbling her feet in a warm pool, delicately feeling the wet sea-velvetof the weeds. 

'Don't you think we had better be mounting the cliffs?' he said. 

She glanced up at him, smiling with irresponsible eyes. Then she lappedthe water with her feet, and surveyed her pink toes. She was absurdly, childishly happy. 

'Why should we?' she asked lightly. 

He watched her. Her child-like indifference to consequences touched himwith a sense of the distance between them. He himself might play withthe delicious warm surface of life, but always he reeked of therelentless mass of cold beneath--the mass of life which has no sympathywith the individual, no cognizance of him. 

She loved the trifles and the toys, the mystery and the magic of things. She would not own life to be relentless. It was either beautiful, fantastic, or weird, or inscrutable, or else mean and vulgar, belowconsideration. He had to get a sense of the anemone and a sympatheticknowledge of its experience, into his blood, before he was satisfied. ToHelena an anemone was one more fantastic pretty figure in herkaleidoscope. 

So she sat dabbling her pink feet in the water, quite unconscious of hisgravity. He waited on her, since he never could capture her. 

'Come, ' he said very gently. 'You are only six years old today. '

She laughed as she let him take her. Then she nestled up to him, smilingin a brilliant, child-like fashion. He kissed her with all the father inhim sadly alive. 

'Now put your stockings on, ' he said. 

'But my feet are wet. ' She laughed. 

He kneeled down and dried her feet on his handkerchief while she sattossing his hair with her finger-tips. The sunlight grew more andmore golden. 

'I envy the savages their free feet, ' she said. 

'There is no broken glass in the wilderness--or there used not to be, 'he replied. 

As they were crossing the sands, a whole family entered by the clifftrack. They descended in single file, unequally, like the theatre; twoboys, then a little girl, the father, another girl, then the mother. Last of all trotted the dog, warily, suspicious of the descent. The boysemerged into the bay with a shout; the dog rushed, barking, after them. The little one waited for her father, calling shrilly:

'Tiss can't fall now, can she, dadda? Shall I put her down?'

'Ay, let her have a run, ' said the father. 

Very carefully she lowered the kitten which she had carried clasped toher bosom. The mite was bewildered and scared. It turned roundpathetically. 

'Go on, Tissie; you're all right, ' said the child. 'Go on; have a run onthe sand. '

The kitten stood dubious and unhappy. Then, perceiving the dog somedistance ahead, it scampered after him, a fluffy, scurrying mite. Butthe dog had already raced into the water. The kitten walked a few steps, turning its small face this way and that, and mewing piteously. Itlooked extraordinarily tiny as it stood, a fluffy handful, staring awayfrom the noisy water, its thin cry floating over the plash of waves. 

Helena glanced at Siegmund, and her eyes were shining with pity. He waswatching the kitten and smiling. 

'Crying because things are too big, and it can't take them in, ' he said. 

'But look how frightened it is, ' she said. 

'So am I. ' He laughed. 'And if there are any gods looking on andlaughing at me, at least they won't be kind enough to put me in theirpinafores. .. . '

She laughed very quickly. 

'But why?' she exclaimed. 'Why should you want putting in a pinafore?'

'I don't, ' he laughed. 

On the top of the cliff they were between two bays, with darkening bluewater on the left, and on the right gold water smoothing to the sun. Siegmund seemed to stand waist-deep in shadow, with his face bright andglowing. He was watching earnestly. 

'I want to absorb it all, ' he said. 

When at last they turned away:

'Yes, ' said Helena slowly; 'one can recall the details, but never theatmosphere. '

He pondered a moment. 

'How strange!' he said. I can recall the atmosphere, but not the detail. It is a moment to me, not a piece of scenery. I should say the picturewas in me, not out there. '

Without troubling to understand--she was inclined to think itverbiage--she made a small sound of assent. 

'That is why you want to go again to a place, and I don't care so much, because I have it with me, ' he concluded. 

_Chapter 11_

They decided to find their way through the lanes to Alum Bay, and then, keeping the cross in sight, to return over the downs, with the moon-pathbroad on the water before them. For the moon was rising late. Twilight, however, rose more rapidly than they had anticipated. The lane twistedamong meadows and wild lands and copses--a wilful little lane, quiteincomprehensible. So they lost their distant landmark, the white cross. 

Darkness filtered through the daylight. When at last they came to asignpost, it was almost too dark to read it. The fingers seemed towithdraw into the dusk the more they looked. 

'We must go to the left, ' said Helena. 

To the left rose the downs, smooth and grey near at hand, but higherblack with gorse, like a giant lying asleep with a bearskin over hisshoulders. 

Several pale chalk-tracks ran side by side through the turf. Climbing, they came to a disused chalk-pit, which they circumvented. Having passeda lonely farmhouse, they mounted the side of the open down, where was asense of space and freedom. 

'We can steer by the night, ' said Siegmund, as they trod upwardspathlessly. Helena did not mind whither they steered. All places in thatlarge fair night were home and welcome to her. They drew nearer to theshaggy cloak of furze. 

'There will be a path through it, ' said Siegmund. 

But when they arrived there was no path. They were confronted by a tall, impenetrable growth of gorse, taller than Siegmund. 

'Stay here, ' said he, 'while I look for a way through. I am afraid youwill be tired. '

She stood alone by the walls of gorse. The lights that had flickeredinto being during the dusk grew stronger, so that a little farmhousedown the hill glowed with great importance on the night, while thefar-off in visible sea became like a roadway, large and mysterious, itsspecks of light moving slowly, and its bigger lamps stationed out amidthe darkness. Helena wanted the day-wanness to be quite wiped off thewest. She asked for the full black night, that would obliterateeverything save Siegmund. Siegmund it was that the whole world meant. The darkness, the gorse, the downs, the specks of light, seemed only tobespeak him. She waited for him to come back. She could hardly endurethe condition of intense waiting. 

He came, in his grey clothes almost invisible. But she felt him coming. 

'No good, ' he said, 'no vestige of a path. Not a rabbit-run. '

'Then we will sit down awhile, ' said she calmly. 

'"Here on this mole-hill, "' he quoted mockingly. 

They sat down in a small gap in the gorse, where the turf was very soft, and where the darkness seemed deeper. The night was all fragrance, coolodour of darkness, keen, savoury scent of the downs, touched withhoneysuckle and gorse and bracken scent. 

Helena turned to him, leaning her hand on his thigh. 

'What day is it, Siegmund?' she asked, in a joyous, wondering tone. Helaughed, understanding, and kissed her. 

'But really, ' she insisted, 'I would not have believed the labels couldhave fallen off everything like this. '

He laughed again. She still leaned towards him, her weight on her hand, stopping the flow in the artery down his thigh. 

'The days used to walk in procession like seven marionettes, each inorder and costume, going endlessly round. ' She laughed, amused atthe idea. 

'It is very strange, ' she continued, 'to have the days and nightssmeared into one piece, as if the clock-hand only went round once in alifetime. '

'That is how it is, ' he admitted, touched by her eloquence. 'You havetorn the labels off things, and they all are so different. This morning!It does seem absurd to talk about this morning. Why should I beparcelled up into mornings and evenings and nights? _I_ am not made upof sections of time. Now, nights and days go racing over us likecloud-shadows and sunshine over the sea, and all the time we takeno notice. '

She put her arms round his neck. He was reminded by a sudden pain in hisleg how much her hand had been pressing on him. He held his breath frompain. She was kissing him softly over the eyes. They lay cheek to cheek, looking at the stars. He felt a peculiar tingling sense of joy, akeenness of perception, a fine, delicate tingling as of music. 

'You know, ' he said, repeating himself, 'it is true. You seem to haveknit all things in a piece for me. Things are not separate; they are allin a symphony. They go moving on and on. You are the motive ineverything. '

Helena lay beside him, half upon him, sad with bliss. 

'You must write a symphony of this--of us, ' she said, prompted by adisciple's vanity. 

'Some time, ' he answered. 'Later, when I have time. '

'Later, ' she murmured--'later than what?'

'I don't know, ' he replied. 'This is so bright we can't see beyond. ' Heturned his face to hers and through the darkness smiled into her eyesthat were so close to his. Then he kissed her long and lovingly. He lay, with her head on his shoulder looking through her hair at the stars. 

'I wonder how it is you have such a fine natural perfume, ' he said, always in the same abstract, inquiring tone of happiness. 

'Haven't all women?' she replied, and the peculiar penetrating twang ofa brass reed was again in her voice. 

'I don't know, ' he said, quite untouched. 'But you are scented likenuts, new kernels of hazel-nuts, and a touch of opium. .. . ' He remainedabstractedly breathing her with his open mouth, quite absorbed in her. 

'You are so strange, ' she murmured tenderly, hardly able to control hervoice to speak. 

'I believe, ' he said slowly, 'I can see the stars moving through yourhair. No, keep still, _you_ can't see them. ' Helena lay obediently verystill. 'I thought I could watch them travelling, crawling like goldflies on the ceiling, ' he continued in a slow sing-song. 'But now youmake your hair tremble, and the stars rush about. ' Then, as a newthought struck him: 'Have you noticed that you can't recognize theconstellations lying back like this. I can't see one. Where is thenorth, even?'

She laughed at the idea of his questioning her concerning these things. She refused to learn the names of the stars or of the constellations, asof the wayside plants. 'Why should I want to label them?' she would say. 'I prefer to look at them, not to hide them under a name. ' So shelaughed when he asked her to find Vega or Arcturus. 

'How full the sky is!' Siegmund dreamed on--'like a crowded street. Downhere it is vastly lonely in comparison. We've found a place far quieterand more private than the stars, Helena. Isn't it fine to be up here, with the sky for nearest neighbour?'

'I did well to ask you to come?' she inquired wistfully. He turned toher. 

'As wise as God for the minute, ' he replied softly. 'I think a fewfurtive angels brought us here--smuggled us in. '

'And you are glad?' she asked. He laughed. 

'_Carpe diem_, ' he said. 'We have plucked a beauty, my dear. With thisrose in my coat I dare go to hell or anywhere. '

'Why hell, Siegmund?' she asked in displeasure. 

'I suppose it is the _postero_. In everything else I'm a failure, Helena. But, ' he laughed, 'this day of ours is a rose not many menhave plucked. '

She kissed him passionately, beginning to cry in a quick, noiselessfashion. 

'What does it matter, Helena?' he murmured. 'What does it matter? We arehere yet. '

The quiet tone of Siegmund moved her with a vivid passion of grief. Shefelt she should lose him. Clasping him very closely, she burst intouncontrollable sobbing. He did not understand, but he did not interrupther. He merely held her very close, while he looked through her shakinghair at the motionless stars. He bent his head to hers, he sought herface with his lips, heavy with pity. She grew a little quieter. He felthis cheek all wet with her tears, and, between his cheek and hers, theravelled roughness of her wet hair that chafed and made his face burn. 

'What is it, Helena?' he asked at last. 'Why should you cry?'

She pressed her face in his breast, and said in a muffled, unrecognizable voice:

'You won't leave me, will you, Siegmund?'

'How could I? How should I?' he murmured soothingly. She lifted her facesuddenly and pressed on him a fierce kiss. 

'How could I leave you?' he repeated, and she heard his voice waking, the grip coming into his arms, and she was glad. 

An intense silence came over everything. Helena almost expected to hearthe stars moving, everything below was so still. She had no idea whatSiegmund was thinking. He lay with his arms strong around her. Then sheheard the beating of his heart, like the muffled sound of salutes, shethought. It gave her the same thrill of dread and excitement, mingledwith a sense of triumph. Siegmund had changed again, his mood was gone, so that he was no longer wandering in a night of thoughts, but hadbecome different, incomprehensible to her. She had no idea what shethought or felt. All she knew was that he was strong, and was knockingurgently with his heart on her breast, like a man who wanted somethingand who dreaded to be sent away. How he came to be so concentratedlyurgent she could not understand. It seemed an unreasonable anincomprehensible obsession to her. Yet she was glad, and she smiled inher heart, feeling triumphant and restored. Yet again, dimly, shewondered where was the Siegmund of ten minutes ago, and her heart liftedslightly with yearning, to sink with a dismay. This Siegmund was soincomprehensible. Then again, when he raised his head and found hermouth, his lips filled her with a hot flush like wine, a sweet, flamingflush of her whole body, most exquisite, as if she were nothing but asoft rosy flame of fire against him for a moment or two. That, shedecided, was supreme, transcendental. 

The lights of the little farmhouse below had vanished, the yellow specksof ships were gone. Only the pier-light, far away, shone in the blacksea like the broken piece of a star. Overhead was a silver-greyness ofstars; below was the velvet blackness of the night and the sea. Helenafound herself glimmering with fragments of poetry, as she saw the sea, when she looked very closely, glimmered dustily with a reflectionof stars. 

 _Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser Ohne Regung ruht das Meer . .. _

She was fond of what scraps of German verse she knew. With French verseshe had no sympathy; but Goethe and Heine and Uhland seemed to speakher language. 

 _Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt, Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein. _

She liked Heine best of all:

 _Wie Träume der Kindheit seh' ich es flimmern Auf deinem wogenden Wellengebiet, Und alte Erinnerung erzählt mir auf's Neue Von all dem lieben herrlichen Spielzeug, Von all den blinkenden Weihnachtsgaben. .. . _

As she lay in Siegmund's arms again, and he was very still, dreaming sheknew not what, fragments such as these flickered and were gone, like thegleam of a falling star over water. The night moved on imperceptiblyacross the sky. Unlike the day, it made no sound and gave no sign, butpassed unseen, unfelt, over them. Till the moon was ready to step forth. Then the eastern sky blenched, and there was a small gathering of cloudsround the opening gates:

 _Aus alten Märchen winket es Hervor mit weisser Hand, Da singt es und da klingt es Von einem Zauberland. _

Helena sang this to herself as the moon lifted herself slowly among theclouds. She found herself repeating them aloud in in a forgetfulsingsong, as children do. 

'What is it?' said Siegmund. They were both of them sunk in their ownstillness, therefore it was a moment or two before she repeated hersingsong, in a little louder tone. He did not listen to her, havingforgotten that he had asked her a question. 

'Turn your head, ' she told him, when she had finished the verse, 'andlook at the moon. '

He pressed back his head, so that there was a gleaming pallor on hischin and his forehead and deep black shadow over his eyes and hisnostrils. This thrilled Helena with a sense of mystery and magic. 

'"_Die grossen Blumen schmachten_, "' she said to herself, curiouslyawake and joyous. 'The big flowers open with black petals and silveryones, Siegmund. You are the big flowers, Siegmund; yours is thebridegroom face, Siegmund, like a black and glistening flesh-petalledflower, Siegmund, and it blooms in the _Zauberland_, Siegmund--this isthe magic land. '

Between the phrases of this whispered ecstasy she kissed him swiftly onthe throat, in the shadow, and on his faintly gleaming cheeks. He laystill, his heart beating heavily; he was almost afraid of the strangeecstasy she concentrated on him. Meanwhile she whispered over him sharp, breathless phrases in German and English, touching him with her mouthand her cheeks and her forehead. 

'"_Und Liebesweisen tönen_"-not tonight, Siegmund. They are allstill-gorse and the stars and the sea and the trees, are all kissing, Siegmund. The sea has its mouth on the earth, and the gorse and thetrees press together, and they all look up at the moon, they put uptheir faces in a kiss, my darling. But they haven't you-and it allcentres in you, my dear, all the wonder-love is in you, more than inthem all Siegmund--Siegmund!'

He felt the tears falling on him as he lay with heart beating in slowheavy drops under the ecstasy of her love. Then she sank down and layprone on him, spent, clinging to him, lifted up and down by thebeautiful strong motion of his breathing. Rocked thus on his strength, she swooned lightly into unconsciousness. 

When she came to herself she sighed deeply. She woke to the exquisiteheaving of his life beneath her. 

'I have been beyond life. I have been a little way into death!' she saidto her soul, with wide-eyed delight. She lay dazed, wondering upon it. That she should come back into a marvellous, peaceful happinessastonished her. 

Suddenly she became aware that she must be slowly weighing down the lifeof Siegmund. There was a long space between the lift of one breath andthe next. Her heart melted with sorrowful pity. Resting herself on herhands, she kissed him--a long, anguished kiss, as if she would fuse hersoul into his for ever. Then she rose, sighing, sighing again deeply. She put up her hands to her head and looked at the moon. 'No more, ' saidher heart, almost as if it sighed too-'no more!'

She looked down at Siegmund. He was drawing in great heavy breaths. Helay still on his back, gazing up at her, and she stood motionless at hisside, looking down at him. He felt stunned, half-conscious. Yet as helay helplessly looking up at her some other consciousness inside himmurmured; 'Hawwa--Eve--Mother!' She stood compassionate over him. Without touching him she seemed to be yearning over him like a mother. Her compassion, her benignity, seemed so different from his littleHelena. This woman, tall and pale, drooping with the strength of hercompassion, seemed stable, immortal, not a fragile human being, but apersonification of the great motherhood of women. 

'I am her child, too, ' he dreamed, as a child murmurs unconscious insleep. He had never felt her eyes so much as now, in the darkness, whenhe looked only into deep shadow. She had never before so entered andgathered his plaintive masculine soul to the bosom of her nurture. 

'Come, ' she said gently, when she knew he was restored. 'Shall we go?'

He rose, with difficulty gathering his strength. 

_Chapter 12_

Siegmund made a great effort to keep the control of his body. Thehill-side, the gorse, when he stood up, seemed to have fallen back intoshadowed vagueness about him. They were meaningless dark heaps at somedistance, very great, it seemed. 

'I can't get hold of them, ' he said distractedly to himself. He feltdetached from the earth, from all the near, concrete, beloved things; asif these had melted away from him, and left him, sick and unsupported, somewhere alone on the edge of an enormous space. He wanted to lie downagain, to relieve himself of the sickening effort of supporting andcontrolling his body. If he could lie down again perfectly still he neednot struggle to animate the cumbersome matter of his body, and then hewould not feel thus sick and outside himself. 

But Helena was speaking to him, telling him they would see themoon-path. They must set off downhill. He felt her arm clasped firmly, joyously, round his waist. Therein was his stability and warm support. Siegmund felt a keen flush of pitiful tenderness for her as she walkedwith buoyant feet beside him, clasping him so happily, all unconscious. This pity for her drew him nearer to life. 

He shuddered lightly now and again, as they stepped lurching down thehill. He set his jaws hard to suppress this shuddering. It was not inhis limbs, or even on the surface of his body, for Helena did not noticeit. Yet he shuddered almost in anguish internally. 

'What is it?' he asked himself in wonder. 

His thought consisted of these detached phrases, which he spoke verballyto himself. Between-whiles he was conscious only of an almostinsupportable feeling of sickness, as a man feels who is being broughtfrom under an anaesthetic; also he was vaguely aware of a teeming stirof activity, such as one may hear from a closed hive, within him. 

They swung rapidly downhill. Siegmund still shuddered, but not souncontrollably. They came to a stile which they must climb. As hestepped over it needed a concentrated effort of will to place his footsecurely on the step. The effort was so great that he becameconscious of it. 

'Good Lord!' he said to himself. 'I wonder what it is. '

He tried to examine himself. He thought of all the organs of hisbody--his brain, his heart, his liver. There was no pain, and nothingwrong with any of them, he was sure. His dim searching resolved itselfinto another detached phrase. 'There is nothing the matter with me, 'he said. 

Then he continued vaguely wondering, recalling the sensation of wretchedsickness which sometimes follows drunkenness, thinking of the times whenhe had fallen ill. 

'But I am not like that, ' he said, 'because I don't feel tremulous. I amsure my hand is steady. '

Helena stood still to consider the road. He held out his hand beforehim. It was motionless as a dead flower on this silent night. 

'Yes, I think this is the right way, ' said Helena, and they set offagain, as if gaily. 

'It certainly feels rather deathly, ' said Siegmund to himself. Heremembered distinctly, when he was a child and had diphtheria, he hadstretched himself in the horrible sickness, which he felt was--and herehe chose the French word--'_l'agonie_'. But his mother had seen and hadcried aloud, which suddenly caused him to struggle with all his soul tospare her her suffering. 

'Certainly it is like that, ' he said. 'Certainly it is rather deathly. Iwonder how it is. '

Then he reviewed the last hour. 

'I believe we are lost!' Helena interrupted him. 

'Lost! What matter!' he answered indifferently, and Helena pressed himtighter, hearer to her in a kind of triumph. 'But did we not come thisway?' he added. 

'No. See'--her voice was reeded with restrained emotion--'we havecertainly not been along this bare path which dips up and down. '

'Well, then, we must merely keep due eastward, towards the moon prettywell, as much as we can, ' said Siegmund, looking forward over the down, where the moon was wrestling heroically to win free of the pack ofclouds which hung on her like wolves on a white deer. As he looked atthe moon he felt a sense of companionship. Helena, not understanding, left him so much alone; the moon was nearer. 

Siegmund continued to review the last hours. He had been so wondrouslyhappy. The world had been filled with a new magic, a wonderful, statelybeauty which he had perceived for the first time. For long hours he hadbeen wandering in another--a glamorous, primordial world. 

'I suppose, ' he said to himself, 'I have lived too intensely, I seem tohave had the stars and moon and everything else for guests, and nowthey've gone my house is weak. '

So he struggled to diagnose his case of splendour and sickness. Hereviewed his hour of passion with Helena. 

'Surely, ' he told himself, 'I have drunk life too hot, and it has hurtmy cup. My soul seems to leak out--I am half here, half gone away. That's why I understand the trees and the night so painfully. '

Then he came to the hour of Helena's strange ecstasy over him. That, somehow, had filled him with passionate grief. It was happinessconcentrated one drop too keen, so that what should have been vivid winewas like a pure poison scathing him. But his consciousness, which hadbeen unnaturally active, now was dulling. He felt the blood flowingvigorously along the limbs again, and stilling has brain, sweeping awayhis sickness, soothing him. 

'I suppose, ' he said to himself for the last time, 'I suppose living toointensely kills you, more or less. '

Then Siegmund forgot. He opened his eyes and saw the night about him. The moon had escaped from the cloud-pack, and was radiant behind a fineveil which glistened to her rays, and which was broidered with alustrous halo, very large indeed, the largest halo Siegmund had everseen. When the little lane turned full towards the moon, it seemed as ifSiegmund and Helena would walk through a large Moorish arch ofhorse-shoe shape, the enormous white halo opening in front of them. Theywalked on, keeping their faces to the moon, smiling with wonder and alittle rapture, until once mote the little lane curved wilfully, andthey were walking north. Helena observed three cottages crouching underthe hill and under trees to cover themselves from the magic of themoonlight. 

'We certainly did not come this way before, ' she said triumphantly. Theidea of being lost delighted her. 

Siegmund looked round at the grey hills smeared over with a low, dimglisten of moon-mist. He could not yet fully realize that he was walkingalong a lane in the Isle of Wight. His surroundings seemed to belong tosome state beyond ordinary experience--some place in romance, perhaps, or among the hills where Brünhild lay sleeping in her large bright haloof fire. How could it be that he and Helena were two children of Londonwandering to find their lodging in Freshwater? He sighed, and lookedagain over the hills where the moonlight was condensing in mistethereal, frail, and yet substantial, reminding him of the way the mannamust have condensed out of the white moonlit mists of Arabian deserts. 

'We may be on the road to Newport, ' said Helena presently, 'and thedistance is ten miles. '

She laughed, not caring in the least whither they wandered, exulting inthis wonderful excursion! She and Siegmund alone in a glisteningwilderness of night at the back of habited days and nights! Siegmundlooked at her. He by no means shared her exultation, though hesympathized with it. He walked on alone in his deep seriousness, ofwhich she was not aware. Yet when he noticed her abandon, he drew hernearer, and his heart softened with protecting tenderness towards her, and grew heavy with responsibility. 

The fields breathed off a scent as if they were come to life with thenight, and were talking with fragrant eagerness. The farms huddledtogether in sleep, and pulled the dark shadow over them to hide from thesupernatural white night; the cottages were locked and darkened. Helenawalked on in triumph through this wondrous hinterland of night, activelysearching for the spirits, watching the cottages they approached, listening, looking for the dreams of those sleeping inside, in thedarkened rooms. She imagined she could see the frail dream-faces at thewindows; she fancied they stole out timidly into the gardens, and wentrunning away among the rabbits on the gleamy hill-side. Helena laughedto herself, pleased with her fancy of wayward little dreams playing withweak hands and feet among the large, solemn-sleeping cattle. This wasthe first time, she told herself, that she had ever been out among thegrey-frocked dreams and white-armed fairies. She imagined herself lyingasleep in her room, while her own dreams slid out down the moonbeams. She imagined Siegmund sleeping in his room, while his dreams, dark-eyed, their blue eyes very dark and yearning at night-time, came wanderingover the grey grass seeking her dreams. 

So she wove her fancies as she walked, until for very weariness she wasfain to remember that it was a long way--a long way. Siegmund's arm wasabout her to support her; she rested herself upon it. They crossed astile and recognized, on the right of the path, the graveyard of theCatholic chapel. The moon, which the days were paring smaller withenvious keen knife, shone upon the white stones in the burial-ground. The carved Christ upon His cross hung against a silver-grey sky. Helenalooked up wearily, bowing to the tragedy. Siegmund also looked, andbowed his head. 

'Thirty years of earnest love; three years' life like a passionateecstasy-and it was finished. He was very great and very wonderful. I amvery insignificant, and shall go out ignobly. But we are the same; love, the brief ecstasy, and the end. But mine is one rose, and His all thewhite beauty in the world. '

Siegmund felt his heart very heavy, sad, and at fault, in presence ofthe Christ. Yet he derived comfort from the knowledge that life wastreating him in the same manner as it had treated the Master, though hiscompared small and despicable with the Christ-tragedy. Siegmund steppedsoftly into the shadow of the pine copse. 

'Let me get under cover, ' he thought. 'Let me hide in it; it is good, the sudden intense darkness. I am small and futile: my small, futile tragedy!'

Helena shrank in the darkness. It was almost terrible to her, and thesilence was like a deep pit. She shrank to Siegmund. He drew her closer, leaning over her as they walked, trying to assure her. His heart washeavy, and heavy with a tenderness approaching grief, for his small, brave Helena. 

'Are you sure this is the right way?' he whispered to her. 

'Quite, quite sure, ' she whispered confidently in reply. And presentlythey came out into the hazy moonlight, and began stumbling down thesteep hill. They were both very tired, both found it difficult to gowith ease or surety this sudden way down. Soon they were creepingcautiously across the pasture and the poultry farm. Helena's heart wasbeating, as she imagined what a merry noise there would be should theywake all the fowls. She dreaded any commotion, any questioning, thisnight, so she stole carefully along till they issued on the high-roadnot far from home. 

_Chapter 13_

In the morning, after bathing, Siegmund leaned upon the seawall in akind of reverie. It was late, towards nine o'clock, yet he lounged, dreamily looking out on the turquoise blue water, and the white haze ofmorning, and the small, fair shadows of ships slowly realizing beforehim. In the bay were two battleships, uncouth monsters, lying as naïveand curious as sea-lions strayed afar. 

Siegmund was gazing oversea in a half-stupid way, when he heard a voicebeside him say:

'Where have they come from; do you know, sir?'

He turned, saw a fair, slender man of some thirty-five years standingbeside him and smiling faintly at the battleships. 

'The men-of-war? There are a good many at Spithead, ' said Siegmund. 

The other glanced negligently into his face. 

'They look rather incongruous, don't you think? We left the sea emptyand shining, and when we come again, behold, these objects keeping theireye on us!'

Siegmund laughed. 

'You are not an Anarchist, I hope?' he said jestingly. 

'A Nihilist, perhaps, ' laughed the other. 'But I am quite fond of theCzar, if pity is akin to love. No; but you can't turn round withoutfinding some policeman or other at your elbow--look at them, abominableironmongery!--ready to put his hand on your shoulder. '

The speaker's grey-blue eyes, always laughing with mockery, glanced fromthe battleships and lit on the dark blue eyes of Siegmund. The latterfelt his heart lift in a convulsive movement. This stranger ran soquickly to a perturbing intimacy. 

'I suppose we are in the hands of--God, ' something moved Siegmund tosay. The stranger contracted his eyes slightly as he gazed deep atthe speaker. 

'Ah!' he drawled curiously. Then his eyes wandered over the wet hair, the white brow, and the bare throat of Siegmund, after which theyreturned again to the eyes of his interlocutor. 'Does the Czar sail thisway?' he asked at last. 

'I do not know, ' replied Siegmund, who, troubled by the other'spenetrating gaze, had not expected so trivial a question. 

'I suppose the newspaper will tell us?' said the man. 

Sure to, ' said Siegmund. 

'You haven't seen it this morning?'

'Not since Saturday. '

The swift blue eyes of the man dilated. He looked curiously at Siegmund. 

'You are not alone on your holiday?'

'No. ' Siegmund did not like this--he gazed over the sea in displeasure. 

'I live here--at least for the present--name, Hampson--'

'Why, weren't you one of the first violins at the Savoy fifteen yearsback?' asked Siegmund. 

They chatted awhile about music. They had known each other, had beenfairly intimate, and had since become strangers. Hampson excused himselffor having addressed Siegmund:

'I saw you with your nose flattened against the window, ' he said, 'andas I had mine in the same position too, I thought we were fit to bere-acquainted. '

Siegmund looked at the man in astonishment. 

'I only mean you were staring rather hard at nothing. It's a pity to tryand stare out of a beautiful blue day like this, don't you think?'

'Stare beyond it, you mean?' asked Siegmund. 

'Exactly!' replied the other, with a laugh of intelligence. 'I call aday like this "the blue room". It's the least draughty apartment in allthe confoundedly draughty House of Life. '

Siegmund looked at him very intently. This Hampson seemed to expresssomething in his own soul. 

'I mean, ' the man explained, 'that after all, the great mass of lifethat washes unidentified, and that we call death, creeps through theblue envelope of the day, and through our white tissue, and we can'tstop it, once we've begun to leak. '

'What do you mean by "leak"?' asked Siegmund. 

'Goodness knows--I talk through my hat. But once you've got a bit tiredof the house, you glue your nose to the windowpane, and stare for thedark--as you were doing. '

'But, to use your metaphor, I'm not tired of the House--if you meanLife, ' said Siegmund. 

'Praise God! I've met a poet who's not afraid of having his pocketpicked--or his soul, or his brain!' said the stranger, throwing his headback in a brilliant smile, his eyes dilated. 

'I don't know what you mean, sir, ' said Siegmund, very quietly, with astrong fear and a fascination opposing each other in his heart. 

'You're not tired of the House, but of your own particular room-say, suite of rooms--'

'Tomorrow I am turned out of this "blue room", ' said Siegmund with a wrysmile. The other looked at him seriously. 

'Dear Lord!' exclaimed Hampson; then: 'Do you remember Flaubert's saint, who laid naked against a leper? I could _not_ do it. '

'Nor I, ' shuddered Siegmund. 

'But you've got to-or something near it!'

Siegmund looked at the other with frightened, horrified eyes. 

'What of yourself?' he said, resentfully. 

'I've funked-ran away from my leper, and now am eating my heart out, andstaring from the window at the dark. '

'But can't you _do_ something?' said Siegmund. 

The other man laughed with amusement, throwing his head back and showinghis teeth. 

'I won't ask you what _your_ intentions are, ' he said, with delicateirony in his tone. 'You know, I am a tremendously busy man. I earn fivehundred a year by hard work; but it's no good. If you have acquired aliking for intensity in life, you can't do without it. I mean vivid soulexperience. It takes the place, with us, of the old adventure, andphysical excitement. '

Siegmund looked at the other man with baffled, anxious eyes. 

'Well, and what then?' he said. 

'What then? A craving for intense life is nearly as deadly as any othercraving. You become a _concentré_, you feed your normal flame withoxygen, and it devours your tissue. The soulful ladies of romance arealways semi-transparent. '

Siegmund laughed. 

'At least, I am quite opaque, ' he said. 

The other glanced over his easy, mature figure and strong throat. 

'Not altogether, ' said Hampson. 'And you, I should think, are one whoseflame goes nearly out, when the stimulant is lacking. '

Siegmund glanced again at him, startled. 

'You haven't much reserve. You're like a tree that'll flower till itkills itself, ' the man continued. 'You'll run till you drop, and thenyou won't get up again. You've no dispassionate intellect to control youand economize. '

'You're telling me very plainly what I am and am not, ' said Siegmund, laughing rather sarcastically. He did not like it. 

'Oh, it's only what I think, ' replied Hampson. 'We're a good deal alike, you see, and have gone the same way. You married and I didn't; but womenhave always done as they liked with me. '

'That's hardly so in my case, ' said Siegmund. 

Hampson eyed him critically. 

'Say one woman; it's enough, ' he replied. 

Siegmund gazed, musing, over the sea. 

'The best sort of women--the most interesting--are the worst for us, 'Hampson resumed. 'By instinct they aim at suppressing the gross andanimal in us. Then they are supersensitive--refined a bit beyondhumanity. We, who are as little gross as need be, become theirinstruments. Life is grounded in them, like electricity in the earth;and we take from them their unrealized life, turn it into light orwarmth or power for them. The ordinary woman is, alone, a greatpotential force, an accumulator, if you like, charged from the source oflife. In us her force becomes evident. 

'She can't live without us, but she destroys us. These deep, interestingwomen don't want _us_; they want the flowers of the spirit they cangather of us. We, as natural men, are more or less degrading to them andto their love of us; therefore they destroy the natural man in us--thatis, us altogether. '

'You're a bit downright are you not?' asked Siegmund, deprecatingly. Hedid not disagree with what his friend said, nor tell him such statementswere arbitrary. 

'That's according to my intensity, ' laughed Hampson. 'I can open theblue heaven with looking, and push back the doors of day a little, andsee--God knows what! One of these days I shall slip through. Oh, I amperfectly sane; I only strive beyond myself!'

'Don't you think it's wrong to get like it?' asked Siegmund. 

'Well, I do, and so does everybody; but the crowd profits by us in theend. When they understand my music, it will be an education to them; andthe whole aim of mankind is to render life intelligible. '

Siegmund pondered a little. .. . 

'You make me feel--as if I were loose, and a long way off from myself, 'he said slowly. 

The young man smiled, then looked down at the wall, where his own handslay white and fragile, showing the blue veins. 

'I can scarcely believe they are me, ' he said. 'If they rose up andrefused me, I should not be surprised. But aren't they beautiful?'

He looked, with a faint smile, at Siegmund. 

Siegmund glanced from the stranger's to his own hands, which lay curvedon the sea-wall as if asleep. They were small for a man of his stature, but, lying warm in the sun, they looked particularly secure in life. Instinctively, with a wave of self-love, he closed his fists overhis thumbs. 

'I wonder, ' said Hampson softly, with strange bitterness, 'that shecan't see it; I wonder she doesn't cherish you. You are full andbeautiful enough in the flesh--why will she help to destroy you, whenshe loved you to such extremity?'

Siegmund looked at him with awe-stricken eyes. The frail, swift man, with his intensely living eyes, laughed suddenly. 

'Fools--the fools, these women!' he said. 'Either they smash their owncrystal, or it revolts, turns opaque, and leaps out of their hands. Lookat me, I am whittled down to the quick; but your neck is thick withcompressed life; it is a stem so tense with life that it will hold up byitself. I am very sorry. '

All at once he stopped. The bitter despair in his tone was the voice ofa heavy feeling of which Siegmund had been vaguely aware for some weeks. Siegmund felt a sense of doom. He laughed, trying to shake it off. 

'I wish I didn't go on like this, ' said Hampson piteously. 'I wish Icould be normal. How hot it is already! You should wear a hat. It isreally hot. ' He pulled open his flannel shirt. 

'I like the heat, ' said Siegmund. 

'So do I. '

Directly, the young man dashed the long hair on his forehead into somesort of order, bowed, and smiling in his gay fashion, walked leisurelyto the village. 

Siegmund stood awhile as if stunned. It seemed to him only a painfuldream. Sighing deeply to relieve himself of the pain, he set off tofind Helena. 

_Chapter 14_

In the garden of tall rose trees and nasturtiums Helena was againwaiting. It was past nine o'clock, so she was growing impatient. Toherself, however, she professed a great interest in a little book ofverses she had bought in St Martin's Lane for twopence. 

 A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings, As through the glade, dim in the dark, she flew. .. . 

So she read. She made a curious, pleased sound, and remarked to herselfthat she thought these verses very fine. But she watched the roadfor Siegmund. 

 And now she takes the scissors on her thumb . .. Oh then, no more unto my lattice come. 

'H'm!' she said, 'I really don't know whether I like that or not. '

Therefore she read the piece again before she looked down the road. 

'He really is very late. It is absurd to think he may have got drowned;but if he were washing about at the bottom of the sea, his hair loose onthe water!'

Her heart stood still as she imagined this. 

'But what nonsense! I like these verses _very_ much. I will read them asI walk along the side path, where I shall hear the bees, and catch theflutter of a butterfly among the words. That will be a very fitting wayto read this poet. '

So she strolled to the gate, glancing up now and again. There, sureenough, was Siegmund coming, the towel hanging over his shoulder, histhroat bare, and his face bright. She stood in the mottled shade. 

'I have kept you waiting, ' said Siegmund. 

'Well, I was reading, you see. '

She would not admit her impatience. 

'I have been talking, ' he said. 

'Talking!' she exclaimed in slight displeasure. 'Have you found anacquaintance even here?'

'A fellow who was quite close friends in Savoy days; he made me feelqueer-sort of _Doppelgänger_, he was. '

Helena glanced up swiftly and curiously. 

'In what way?' she said. 

'He talked all the skeletons in the cupboard-such piffle it seems, now!The sea is like a harebell, and there are two battleships lying in thebay. You can hear the voices of the men on deck distinctly. Well, haveyou made the plans for today?'

They went into the house to breakfast. She watched him helping himselfto the scarlet and green salad. 

'Mrs Curtiss, ' she said, in rather reedy tone, 'has been very motherlyto me this morning; oh, very motherly!'

Siegmund, who was in a warm, gay mood, shrank up. 

'What, has she been saying something about last night?' he asked. 

'She was very much concerned for me-was afraid something dreadful hadhappened, ' continued Helena, in the same keen, sarcastic tone, whichshowed she was trying to rid herself of her own mortification. 

'Because we weren't in till about eleven?' said Siegmund, also withsarcasm. 

'I mustn't do it again. Oh no, I mustn't do it again, really. '

'For fear of alarming the old lady?' he asked. 

'"You know, dear, it troubles _me_ a good deal . .. But if I were your_mother_, I don't know _how_ I should feel, "' she quoted. 

'When one engages rooms one doesn't usually stipulate for a stepmotherto nourish one's conscience, ' said Siegmund. They laughed, making jestof the affair; but they were both too thin-skinned. Siegmund writhedwithin himself with mortification, while Helena talked as if her teethwere on edge. 

'I don't _mind_ in the least, ' she said. 'The poor old woman has heropinions, and I mine. '

Siegmund brooded a little. 

'I know I'm a moral coward, ' he said bitterly. 

'Nonsense' she replied. Then, with a little heat: 'But you _do_ continueto try so hard to justify yourself, as if _you_ felt you neededjustification. '

He laughed bitterly. 

'I tell you--a little thing like this--it remains tied tight roundsomething inside me, reminding me for hours--well, what everybody else'sopinion of me is. '

Helena laughed rather plaintively. 

'I thought you were so sure we were right, ' she said. 

He winced again. 

'In myself I am. But in the eyes of the world--'

'If you feel so in yourself, is not that enough?' she said brutally. 

He hung his head, and slowly turned his serviette-ring. 

'What is myself?' he asked. 

'Nothing very definite, ' she said, with a bitter laugh. 

They were silent. After a while she rose, went lovingly over to him, andput her arms round his neck. 

'This is our last clear day, dear, ' she said. 

A wave of love came over him, sweeping away all the rest. He took her inhis arms. .. . 

'It will be hot today, ' said Helena, as they prepared to go out. 

'I felt the sun steaming in my hair as I came up, ' he replied. 

'I shall wear a hat--you had better do so too. '

'No, ' he said. 'I told you I wanted a sun-soaking; now I think I shallget one. '

She did not urge or compel him. In these matters he was old enough tochoose for himself. 

This morning they were rather silent. Each felt the tarnish on theirremaining day. 

'I think, dear, ' she said, 'we ought to find the little path thatescaped us last night. '

'We were lucky to miss it, ' he answered. 'You don't get a walk like thattwice in a lifetime, in spite of the old ladies. '

She glanced up at him with a winsome smile, glad to hear his words. 

They set off, Siegmund bare-headed. He was dressed in flannels and aloose canvas shirt, but he looked what he was--a Londoner on holiday. Hehad the appearance, the diffident bearing, and the well-cut clothes of agentleman. He had a slight stoop, a strong-shouldered stoop, and as hewalked he looked unseeing in front of him. 

Helena belonged to the unclassed. She was not ladylike, nor smart, norassertive. One could not tell whether she were of independent means or aworker. One thing was obvious about her: she was evidently educated. 

Rather short, of strong figure, she was much more noticeably a_concentrée_ than was Siegmund. Unless definitely looking at somethingshe always seemed coiled within herself. 

She wore a white voile dress made with the waist just below her breasts, and the skirt dropping straight and clinging. On her head was a large, simple hat of burnt straw. 

Through the open-worked sleeves of her dress she could feel the sun bitevigorously. 

'I wish you had put on a hat, Siegmund, ' she said. 

'Why?' he laughed. 'My hair is like a hood, ' He ruffled it back with hishand. The sunlight glistened on his forehead. 

On the higher paths a fresh breeze was energetically chasing thebutterflies and driving the few small clouds disconsolate out of thesky. The lovers stood for some time watching the people of the farm inthe down below dip their sheep on this sunny morning. There was a raggednoise of bleating from the flock penned in a corner of the yard. Twored-armed men seized a sheep, hauled it to a large bath that stood inthe middle of the yard, and there held it, more or less in the bath, whilst a third man baled a dirty yellow liquid over its body. The whitelegs of the sheep twinkled as it butted this way and that to escape theyellow douche, the blue-shirted men ducked and struggled. There was afaint splashing and shouting to be heard even from a distance. Thefarmer's wife and children stood by ready to rush in with assistance ifnecessary. 

Helena laughed with pleasure. 

'That is really a very quaint and primitive proceeding, ' she said. 'Itis cruder than Theocritus. '

'In an instant it makes me wish I were a farmer, ' he laughed. 'I thinkevery man has a passion for farming at the bottom of his blood. It wouldbe fine to be plain-minded, to see no farther than the end of one'snose, and to own cattle and land. '

'Would it?' asked Helena sceptically. 

'If I had a red face, and went to sleep as soon as I sat comfortable, Ishould love it, 'he said. 

'It amuses me to hear you long to be stupid, ' she replied. 

'To have a simple, slow-moving mind and an active life is thedesideratum. '

'Is it?' she asked ironically. 

'I would give anything to be like that, ' he said. 

'That is, not to be yourself, ' she said pointedly. 

He laughed without much heartiness. 

'Don't they seem a long way off?' he said, staring at the bucolic scene. 'They are farther than Theocritus--down there is farther than Sicily, and more than twenty centuries from us. I wish it weren't. '

'Why do you?' she cried, with curious impatience. 

He laughed. 

Crossing the down, scattered with dark bushes, they came directlyopposite the path through the furze. 

'There it is!' she cried, 'How could we miss it?'

'Ascribe it to the fairies, ' he replied, whistling the bird music out of_Siegfried_, then pieces of _Tristan_. They talked very little. 

She was tired. When they arrived at a green, naked hollow near thecliff's edge, she said:

'This shall be our house today. '

'Welcome home!' said Siegmund. 

He flung himself down on the high, breezy slope of the dip, looking outto sea. Helena sat beside him. It was absolutely still, and the wind wasslackening more and more. Though they listened attentively, they couldhear only an indistinct breathing sound, quite small, from the waterbelow: no clapping nor hoarse conversation of waves. Siegmund lay withhis hands beneath his head, looking over the sparkling sea. To put herpage in the shadow, Helena propped her book against him and beganto read. 

Presently the breeze, and Siegmund, dropped asleep. The sun was pouringwith dreadful persistence. It beat and beat on Helena, gradually drawingher from her book in a confusion of thought. She closed her eyeswearily, longing for shade. Vaguely she felt a sympathy with Adam in'Adam Cast Forth'. Her mind traced again the tumultuous, obscurestrugglings of the two, forth from Eden through the primitivewildernesses, and she felt sorrowful. Thinking of Adam blackened withstruggle, she looked down at Siegmund. The sun was beating him upon theface and upon his glistening brow. His two hands, which lay out on thegrass, were full of blood, the veins of his wrists purple and swollenwith heat. Yet he slept on, breathing with a slight, panting motion. Helena felt deeply moved. She wanted to kiss him as he lay helpless, abandoned to the charge of the earth and the sky. She wanted to kisshim, and shed a few tears. She did neither, but instead, moved herposition so that she shaded his head. Cautiously putting her hand on hishair, she found it warm, quite hot, as when you put your hand under asitting hen, and feel the hot-feathered bosom. 

'It will make him ill, ' she whispered to herself, and she bent over tosmell the hot hair. She noticed where the sun was scalding his forehead. She felt very pitiful and helpless when she saw his brow becominginflamed with the sun-scalding. 

Turning weariedly away, she sought relief in the landscape. But the seawas glittering unbearably, like a scaled dragon wreathing. The houses ofFreshwater slept, as cattle sleep motionless in the hollow valley. GreenFarringford on the slope, was drawn over with a shadow of heat andsleep. In the bay below the hill the sea was hot and restless. Helenawas sick with sunshine and the restless glitter of water. 

'"And there shall be no more sea, "' she quoted to herself, she knew notwherefrom. 

'No more sea, no more anything, ' she thought dazedly, as she sat in themidst of this fierce welter of sunshine. It seemed to her as if all thelightness of her fancy and her hope were being burned away in thistremendous furnace, leaving her, Helena, like a heavy piece of slagseamed with metal. She tried to imagine herself resuming the oldactivities, the old manner of living. 

'It is impossible, ' she said; 'it is impossible! What shall I be when Icome out of this? I shall not come out, except as metal to be cast inanother shape. No more the same Siegmund, no more the same life. Whatwill become of us--what will happen?'

She was roused from these semi-delirious speculations in the sun furnaceby Siegmund's waking. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and lookedsmiling at Helena. 

'It is worth while to sleep, ' said he, 'for the sake of waking likethis. I was dreaming of huge ice-crystals. '

She smiled at him. He seemed unconscious of fate, happy and strong. Shesmiled upon him almost in condescension. 

'I should like to realize your dream, ' she said. 'This is terrible!'

They went to the cliff's edge, to receive the cool up-flow of air fromthe water. She drank the travelling freshness eagerly with her face, andput forward her sunburnt arms to be refreshed. 

'It is really a very fine sun, ' said Siegmund lightly. 'I feel as if Iwere almost satisfied with heat. '

Helena felt the chagrin of one whose wretchedness must go unperceived, while she affects a light interest in another's pleasure. This time, when Siegmund 'failed to follow her', as she put it, she felt she mustfollow him. 

'You are having your satisfaction complete this journey, ' she said, smiling; 'even a sufficiency of me. '

'Ay!' said Siegmund drowsily. 'I think I am. I think this is aboutperfect, don't you?'

She laughed. 

'I want nothing more and nothing different, ' he continued; 'and that'sthe extreme of a decent time, I should think. '

'The extreme of a decent time!' she repeated. 

But he drawled on lazily:

'I've only rubbed my bread on the cheese-board until now. Now I've gotall the cheese--which is you, my dear. '

'I certainly feel eaten up, ' she laughed, rather bitterly. She saw himlying in a royal ease, his eyes naïve as a boy's, his whole beingcareless. Although very glad to see him thus happy, for herself she feltvery lonely. Being listless with sun-weariness, and heavy with a senseof impending fate, she felt a great yearning for his sympathy, hisfellow-suffering. Instead of receiving this, she had to play to hisbuoyant happiness, so as not to shrivel one petal of his flower, orspoil one minute of his consummate hour. 

From the high point of the cliff where they stood, they could see thepath winding down to the beach, and broadening upwards towards them. Slowly approaching up the slight incline came a black invalid's chair, wheeling silently over the short dry grass. The invalid, a young man, was so much deformed that already his soul seemed to be wilting in hispale sharp face, as if there were not enough life-flow in the distortedbody to develop the fair bud of the spirit. He turned his pain-sunkeneyes towards the sea, whose meaning, like that of all things, was halfobscure to him. Siegmund glanced, and glanced quickly away, before heshould see. Helena looked intently for two seconds. She thought of thetorn, shrivelled seaweed flung above the reach of the tide--'the lifetide, ' she said to herself. The pain of the invalid overshadowed her owndistress. She was fretted to her soul. 

'Come!' she said quietly to Siegmund, no longer resenting thecompleteness of his happiness, which left her unnecessary to him. 

'We will leave the poor invalid in possession of our green hollow--soquiet, ' she said to herself. 

They sauntered downwards towards the bay. Helena was brooding on her ownstate, after her own fashion. 

'The Mist Spirit, ' she said to herself. 'The Mist Spirit draws a curtainround us--it is very kind. A heavy gold curtain sometimes; a thin, torncurtain sometimes. I want the Mist Spirit to close the curtain again, Ido not want to think of the outside. I am afraid of the outside, and Iam afraid when the curtain tears open in rags. I want to be in our ownfine world inside the heavy gold mist-curtain. '

As if in answer or in protest to her thoughts, Siegmund said:

'Do you want anything better than this, dear? Shall we come here nextyear, and stay for a whole month?'

'If there be any next year, ' said she. 

Siegmund did not reply. 

She wondered if he had really spoken in sincerity, or if he, too, weremocking fate. They walked slowly through the broiling sun towardstheir lodging. 

'There will be an end to this, ' said Helena, communing with herself. 'And when we come out of the mist-curtain, what will it be? Nomatter--let come what will. All along Fate has been resolving, from thevery beginning, resolving obvious discords, gradually, by unfamiliarprogression; and out of original combinations weaving wondrous harmonieswith our lives. Really, the working out has been wondrous, is wondrousnow. The Master-Fate is too great an artist to suffer an anti-climax. Iam sure the Master-Musician is too great an artist to allow a batheticanti-climax. '

_Chapter 15_

The afternoon of the blazing day passed drowsily. Lying close togetheron the beach, Siegmund and Helena let the day exhale its hours likeperfume, unperceived. Siegmund slept, a light evanescent sleep irisedwith dreams and with suffering: nothing definite, the colour of dreamswithout shape. Helena, as usual, retained her consciousness much moreclearly. She watched the far-off floating of ships, and the near wadingof children through the surf. Endless trains of thoughts, like littlewaves, rippled forward and broke on the shore of her drowsiness. Buteach thought-ripple, though it ran lightly, was tinged withcopper-coloured gleams as from a lurid sunset. Helena felt that the sunwas setting on her and Siegmund. The hour was too composed, spell-bound, for grief or anxiety or even for close perception. She was merely awarethat the sun was wheeling down, tangling Siegmund and her in the traces, like overthrown charioteers. So the hours passed. 

After tea they went eastwards on the downs. Siegmund was animated, sothat Helena caught his mood. It was very rare that they spoke of thetime preceding their acquaintance, Helena knew little or nothing ofSiegmund's life up to the age of thirty, whilst he had never learnedanything concerning her childhood. Somehow she did not encourage him toself-discovery. Today, however, the painful need of lovers forself-revelation took hold on him. 

'It is awfully funny, ' he said. 'I was _so_ gone on Beatrice when Imarried her. She had only just come back from Egypt. Her father was anarmy officer, a very handsome man, and, I believe, a bit of a rake. Beatrice is really well connected, you know. But old FitzHerbert ranthrough all his money, and through everything else. He was too hot forthe rest of the family, so they dropped him altogether. 

'He came to live at Peckham when I was sixteen. I had just left school, and was to go into father's business. Mrs FitzHerbert left cards, andvery soon we were acquainted. Beatrice had been a good time in a Frenchconvent school. She had only knocked about with the army a little while, but it had brought her out. I remember I thought she was miles aboveme--which she was. She wasn't bad-looking, either, and you know men alllike her. I bet she'd marry again, in spite of the children. 

'At first I fluttered round her. I remember I'd got a little, silkymoustache. They all said I looked older than sixteen. At that time I wasmad on the violin, and she played rather well. Then FitzHerbert went offabroad somewhere, so Beatrice and her mother half lived at our house. The mother was an invalid. 

'I remember I nearly stood on my head one day. The conservatory openedoff the smoking-room, so when I came in the room, I heard my two sistersand Beatrice talking about good-looking men. 

'"I consider Bertram will make a handsome man, " said my younger sister. 

'"He's got beautiful eyes, " said my other sister. 

'"And a real darling nose and chin!" cried Beatrice. "If only he wasmore _solide_! He is like a windmill, all limbs. "

'"He will fill out. Remember, he's not quite seventeen, " said my eldersister. 

'"Ah, he is _doux_--he is _câlin_, " said Beatrice. 

'"I think he is rather _too_ spoony for his age, " said my elder sister. 

'"But he's a fine boy for all that. See how thick his knees are, " myyounger sister chimed in. 

'"Ah, _si, si_!" cried Beatrice. 

'I made a row against the door, then walked across. 

'"Hello, is somebody in here?" I said, as I pushed into the littleconservatory. 

'I looked straight at Beatrice, and she at me. We seemed to have formedan alliance in that look: she was the other half of my consciousness, Iof hers. Ha! Ha! there were a lot of white narcissus, and little whitehyacinths, Roman hyacinths, in the conservatory. I can see them now, great white stars, and tangles of little ones, among a bank of green;and I can recall the keen, fresh scent on the warm air; and the look ofBeatrice . .. Her great dark eyes. 

'It's funny, but Beatrice is as dead--ay, far more dead--than Dante's. And I am not that young fool, not a bit. 

'I was very romantic, fearfully emotional, and the soul of honour. Beatrice said nobody cared a thing about her. FitzHerbert was alwaysjaunting off, the mother was a fretful invalid. So I was seventeen, earning half a guinea a week, and she was eighteen, with no money, whenwe ran away to Brighton and got married. Poor old Pater, he took itawfully well, I have been a frightful drag on him, you know. 

'There's the romance. I wonder how it will all end. '

Helena laughed, and he did not detect her extreme bitterness of spirit. 

They walked on in silence for some time. He was thinking back, beforeHelena's day. This left her very much alone, and forced on her the ideathat, after all, love, which she chose to consider as single andwonderful a thing in a man's life as birth, or adolescence, or death, was temporary, and formed only an episode. It was her hour ofdisillusion. 

'Come to think of it, ' Siegmund continued, 'I have always shirked. Whenever I've been in a tight corner I've gone to Pater. '

'I think, ' she said, 'marriage has been a tight corner you couldn't getout of to go to anybody. '

'Yet I'm here, ' he answered simply. 

The blood suffused her face and neck. 

'And some men would have made a better job of it. When it's come tosticking out against Beatrice, and sailing the domestic ship in spite ofher, I've always funked. I tell you I'm something of a moral coward. '

He had her so much on edge she was inclined to answer, 'So be it. 'Instead, she ran back over her own history: it consisted of pettydiscords in contemptible surroundings, then of her dreams and fancies, finally--Siegmund. 

'In my life, ' she said, with the fine, grating discord in her tones, 'Imight say _always_, the real life has seemed just outside--browniesrunning and fairies peeping--just beyond the common, ugly place where Iam. I seem to have been hedged in by vulgar circumstances, able toglimpse outside now and then, and see the reality. '

'You are so hard to get at, ' said Siegmund. 'And so scornful of familiarthings. '

She smiled, knowing he did not understand. The heat had jaded her, sothat physically she was full of discord, of dreariness that set herteeth on edge. Body and soul, she was out of tune. 

A warm, noiseless twilight was gathering over the downs and risingdarkly from the sea. Fate, with wide wings, was hovering just over her. Fate, ashen grey and black, like a carrion crow, had her in its shadow. Yet Siegmund took no notice. He did not understand. He walked beside herwhistling to himself, which only distressed her the more. 

They were alone on the smooth hills to the east. Helena looked at theday melting out of the sky, leaving the permanent structure of thenight. It was her turn to suffer the sickening detachment which comesafter moments of intense living. 

The rosiness died out of the sunset as embers fade into thick ash. Inherself, too, the ruddy glow sank and went out. The earth was a colddead heap, coloured drearily, the sky was dark with flocculent grey ash, and she herself an upright mass of soft ash. 

She shuddered slightly with horror. The whole face of things was to herlivid and ghastly. Being a moralist rather than an artist, coming offervent Wesleyan stock, she began to scourge herself. She had done wrongagain. Looking back, no one had she touched without hurting. She had adestructive force; anyone she embraced she injured. Faint voices echoedback from her conscience. The shadows were full of complaint againsther. It was all true, she was a harmful force, dragging Fate to petty, mean conclusions. 

Life and hope were ash in her mouth. She shuddered with discord. Despairgrated between her teeth. This dreariness was worse than any her dreary, lonely life had known. She felt she could bear it no longer. 

Siegmund was there. Surely he could help? He would rekindle her. But hewas straying ahead, carelessly whistling the Spring Song from _DieWalküre_. She looked at him, and again shuddered with horror. Was thatreally Siegmund, that stooping, thick-shouldered, indifferent man? Wasthat the Siegmund who had seemed to radiate joy into his surroundings, the Siegmund whose coming had always changed the whole weather of hersoul? Was that the Siegmund whose touch was keen with bliss for her, whose face was a panorama of passing God? She looked at him again. Hisradiance was gone, his aura had ceased. She saw him a stooping man, pastthe buoyancy of youth, walking and whistling rather stupidly--in short, something of the 'clothed animal on end', like the rest of men. 

She suffered an agony of disillusion. Was this the real Siegmund, andher own only a projection of her soul? She took her breath sharply. Washe the real clay, and that other, her beloved, only the breathing of hersoul upon this. There was an awful blank before her. 

'Siegmund!' she said in despair. 

He turned sharply at the sound of her voice. Seeing her face pale anddistorted in the twilight, he was filled with dismay. She mutely liftedher arms to him, watching him in despair. Swiftly he took her in hisarms, and asked in a troubled voice:

'What is it, dear? Is something wrong?'

His voice was nothing to her--it was stupid. She felt his arms roundher, felt her face pressed against the cloth of his coat, against thebeating of his heart. What was all this? This was not comfort or love. He was not understanding or helping, only chaining her, hurting. She didnot want his brute embrace--she was most utterly alone, gripped so inhis arms. If he could not save her from herself, he must leave her freeto pant her heart out in free air. The secret thud, thud of his heart, the very self of that animal in him she feared and hated, repulsed her. She struggled to escape. 

'What is it? Won't you tell me what is the matter?' he pleaded. 

She began to sob, dry wild sobs, feeling as if she would go mad. Hetried to look at her face, for which she hated him. And all the time heheld her fast, all the time she was imprisoned in the embrace of thisbrute, blind creature, whose heart confessed itself in thud, thud, thud. 

'Have you heard anything against us? Have I done anything? Have I saidanything? Tell me--at any rate tell me, Helena. '

Her sobbing was like the chattering of dry leaves. She grew frantic tobe free. Stifled in that prison any longer, she would choke and go mad. His coat chafed her face; as she struggled she could see the strongworking of his throat. She fought against him; she struggled in panicto be free. 

'Let me go!' she cried. 'Let me go! Let me go!' He held her inbewilderment and terror. She thrust her hands in his chest and pushedhim apart. Her face, blind to him, was very much distorted by hersuffering. She thrust him furiously away with great strength. 

His heart stood still with wonder. She broke from him and dropped down, sobbing wildly, in the shelter of the tumuli. She was bunched in asmall, shaken heap. Siegmund could not bear it. He went on one kneebeside her, trying to take her hand in his, and pleading:

'Only tell me, Helena, what it is. Tell me what it is. At least tell me, Helena; tell me what it is. Oh, but this is dreadful!'

She had turned convulsively from him. She shook herself, as if besideherself, and at last covered her ears with her hands, to shut out thisunreasoning pleading of his voice. 

Seeing her like this, Siegmund at last gave in. Quite still, he knelt onone knee beside her, staring at the late twilight. The intense silencewas crackling with the sound of Helena's dry, hissing sobs. He remainedsilenced, stunned by the unnatural conflict. After waiting a while, heput his hand on her. She winced convulsively away. 

Then he rose, saying in his heart, 'It is enough, ' He went behind thesmall hill, and looked at the night. It was all exposed. He wanted tohide, to cover himself from the openness, and there was not even a bushunder which he could find cover. 

He lay down flat on the ground, pressing his face into the wiry turf, trying to hide. Quite stunned, with a death taking place in his soul, helay still, pressed against the earth. He held his breath for a long timebefore letting it go, then again he held it. He could scarcely bear, even by breathing, to betray himself. His consciousness was dark. 

Helena had sobbed and struggled the life animation back into herself. Atlength, weary but comfortable, she lay still to rest. Almost she couldhave gone to sleep. But she grew chilly, and a ground insect tickled herface. Was somebody coming?

It was dark when she rose. Siegmund was not in sight. She tidiedherself, and rather frightened, went to look for him. She saw him like athick shadow on the earth. Now she was heavy with tears good to shed. She stood in silent sorrow, looking at him. 

Suddenly she became aware of someone passing and looking curiously atthem. 

'Dear!' she said softly, stooping and touching his hair. He began tostruggle with himself to respond. At that minute he would rather havedied than face anyone. His soul was too much uncovered. 

'Dear, someone is looking, ' she pleaded. 

He drew himself up from cover. But he kept his face averted. They walkedon. 

'Forgive me, dear, ' she said softly. 

'Nay, it's not you, ' he answered, and she was silenced. They walked ontill the night seemed private. She turned to him, and 'Siegmund!' shesaid, in a voice of great sorrow and pleading. 

He took her in his arms, but did not kiss her, though she lifted herface. He put his mouth against her throat, below the ear, as she offeredit, and stood looking out through the ravel of her hair, dazed, dreamy. 

The sea was smoking with darkness under half-luminous heavens. Thestars, one after another, were catching alight. Siegmund perceived firstone, and then another dimmer one, flicker out in the darkness over thesea. He stood perfectly still, watching them. Gradually he rememberedhow, in the cathedral, the tapers of the choir-stalls would tremble andset steadily to burn, opening the darkness point after point with yellowdrops of flame, as the acolyte touched them, one by one, delicately withhis rod. The night was religious, then, with its proper order ofworship. Day and night had their ritual, and passed in uncouth worship. 

Siegmund found himself in an abbey. He looked up the nave of the night, where the sky came down on the sea-like arches, and he watched the starscatch fire. At least it was all sacred, whatever the God might be. Helena herself, the bitter bread, was stuff of the ceremony, which hetouched with his lips as part of the service. 

He had Helena in his arms, which was sweet company, but in spirit he wasquite alone. She would have drawn him back to her, and on her woman'sbreast have hidden him from Fate, and saved him from searching theunknown. But this night he did not want comfort. If he were 'an infantcrying in the night', it was crying that a woman could not still. He wasabroad seeking courage and faith for his own soul. He, in loneliness, must search the night for faith. 

'My fate is finely wrought out, ' he thought to himself. 'Even damnationmay be finely imagined for me in the night. I have come so far. Now Imust get clarity and courage to follow out the theme. I don't want tobotch and bungle even damnation. '

But he needed to know what was right, what was the proper sequence ofhis acts. Staring at the darkness, he seemed to feel his course, thoughhe could not see it. He bowed in obedience. The stars seemed to swingsoftly in token of submission. 

_Chapter 16_

Feeling him abstract, withdrawn from her, Helena experienced the dreadof losing him. She was in his arms, but his spirit ignored her. That wasinsufferable to her pride. Yet she dared not disturb him--she wasafraid. Bitterly she repented her of the giving way to her revulsion alittle space before. Why had she not smothered it and pretended? Why hadshe, a woman, betrayed herself so flagrantly? Now perhaps she had losthim for good. She was consumed with uneasiness. 

At last she drew back from him, held him her mouth to kiss. As hegently, sadly kissed her she pressed him to her bosom. She must get himback, whatever else she lost. She put her hand tenderly on his brow. 

'What are you thinking of?' she asked. 

'I?' he replied. 'I really don't know. I suppose I was hardly thinkinganything. '

She waited a while, clinging to him, then, finding some difficulty inspeech, she asked:

'Was I very cruel, dear?'

It was so unusual to hear her grieved and filled with humility that hedrew her close into him. 

'It was pretty bad, I suppose, ' he replied. 'But I should think neitherof us could help it. '

She gave a little sob, pressed her face into his chest, wishing she hadhelped it. Then, with Madonna love, she clasped his head upon hershoulder, covering her hands over his hair. Twice she kissed him softlyin the nape of the neck, with fond, reassuring kisses. All the while, delicately, she fondled and soothed him, till he was child toher Madonna. 

They remained standing with his head on her shoulder for some time, tillat last he raised himself to lay his lips on hers in a long kiss ofhealing and renewal--long, pale kisses of after-suffering. 

Someone was coming along the path. Helena let him go, shook herselffree, turned sharply aside, and said:

'Shall we go down to the water?'

'If you like, ' he replied, putting out his hand to her. They went thuswith clasped hands down the cliff path to the beach. 

There they sat in the shadow of the uprising island, facing the restlesswater. Around them the sand and shingle were grey; there stretched along pale line of surf, beyond which the sea was black and smeared withstar-reflections. The deep, velvety sky shone with lustrous stars. 

As yet the moon was not risen. Helena proposed that they should lie on atuft of sand in a black cleft of the cliff to await its coming. They layclose together without speaking. Each was looking at a low, large starwhich hung straight in front of them, dripping its brilliance in a thinstreamlet of light along the sea almost to their feet. It was astar-path fine and clear, trembling in its brilliance, but certain uponthe water. Helena watched it with delight. As Siegmund looked at thestar, it seemed to him a lantern hung at the gate to light someone home. He imagined himself following the thread of the star-track. What wasbehind the gate?

They heard the wash of a steamer crossing the bay. The water seemedpopulous in the night-time, with dark, uncanny comings and goings. 

Siegmund was considering. 

'What _was_ the matter with you?' he asked. 

She leaned over him, took his head in her lap, holding his face betweenher two hands as she answered in a low, grave voice, very wise and oldin experience:

'Why, you see, dear, you won't understand. But there was such a greyishdarkness, and through it--the crying of lives I have touched. .. . '

His heart suddenly shrank and sank down. She acknowledged then that shealso had helped to injure Beatrice and his children. He coiledwith shame. 

'. .. . A crying of lives against me, and I couldn't silence them, norescape out of the darkness. I wanted you--I saw you in front, whistlingthe Spring Song, but I couldn't find you--it was not you--I couldn'tfind you. '

She kissed his eyes and his brows. 

'No, I don't see it, ' he said. 'You would always be you. I could thinkof hating you, but you'd still be yourself. '

She made a moaning, loving sound. Full of passionate pity, she moved hermouth on his face, as a woman does on her child that has hurt itself. 

'Sometimes, ' she murmured, in a low, grieved confession, 'you lose me. '

He gave a brief laugh. 

'I lose you!' he repeated. 'You mean I lose my attraction for you, or myhold over you, and then you--?'

He did not finish. She made the same grievous murmuring noise over him. 

'It shall not be any more, ' she said. 

'All right, ' he replied, 'since you decide it. '

She clasped him round the chest and fondled him, distracted with pity. 

'You mustn't be bitter, ' she murmured. 

'Four days is enough, ' he said. 'In a fortnight I should be intolerableto you. I am not masterful. '

'It is not so, Siegmund, ' she said sharply. 

'I give way always, ' he repeated. 'And then--tonight!'

'Tonight, tonight!' she cried in wrath. 'Tonight I have been a fool!'

'And I?' he asked. 

'You--what of you?' she cried. Then she became sad. 'I have littleperverse feelings, ' she lamented. 

'And I can't bear to compel anything, for fear of hurting it. So I'malways pushed this way and that, like a fool. '

'You don't know how you hurt me, talking so, ' she said. 

He kissed her. After a moment he said:

'You are not like other folk. "_Ihr Lascheks seid ein anderesGeschlecht_. " I thought of you when we read it. '

'Would you rather have me more like the rest, or more unlike, Siegmund?Which is it?'

'Neither, ' he said. 'You are _you_. '

They were quiet for a space. The only movement in the night was thefaint gambolling of starlight on the water. The last person had passedin black silhouette between them and the sea. 

He was thinking bitterly. She seemed to goad him deeper and deeper intolife. He had a sense of despair, a preference of death. The German sheread with him--she loved its loose and violent romance--came back to hismind: '_Der Tod geht einem zur Seite, fast sichtbarlich, und jagt einemimmer tiefer ins Leben. _'

Well, the next place he would be hunted to, like a hare run down, washome. It seemed impossible the morrow would take him back to Beatrice. 

'This time tomorrow night, ' he said. 

'Siegmund!' she implored. 

'Why not?' he laughed. 

'Don't, dear, ' she pleaded. 

'All right, I won't. '

Some large steamer crossing the mouth of the bay made the water dash alittle as it broke in accentuated waves. A warm puff of air wandered inon them now and again. 

'You won't be tired when you go back?' Helena asked. 

'Tired!' he echoed. 

'You know how you were when you came, ' she reminded him, in tones fullof pity. He laughed. 

'Oh, that is gone, ' he said. 

With a slow, mechanical rhythm she stroked his cheek. 

'And will you be sad?' she said, hesitating. 

'Sad!' he repeated. 

'But will you be able to fake the old life up, happier, when you goback?'

'The old life will take me up, I suppose, ' he said. 

There was a pause. 

'I think, dear, ' she said, 'I have done wrong. '

'Good Lord--you have not!' he replied sharply, pressing back his head tolook at her, for the first time. 

'I shall have to send you back to Beatrice and the babies--tomorrow--asyou are now. .. . '

'"Take no thought for the morrow. " Be quiet, Helena!' he exclaimed asthe reality bit him. He sat up suddenly. 

'Why?' she asked, afraid. 

'Why!' he repeated. He remained sitting, leaning forward on the sand, staring intently at Helena. She looked back in fear at him. The momentterrified her, and she lost courage. 

With a fluttered motion she put her hand on his, which was pressed hardon the sand as he leaned forward. At once he relaxed his intensity, laughed, then became tender. 

Helena yielded herself like a forlorn child to his arms, and there lay, half crying, while he smoothed her brow with his fingers, and grains ofsand fell from his palm on her cheek. She shook with dry, withered sobs, as a child does when it snatches itself away from the lancet of thedoctor and hides in the mother's bosom, refusing to be touched. 

But she knew the morrow was coming, whether or not, and she cowered downon his breast. She was wild with fear of the parting and the subsequentdays. They must drink, after tomorrow, separate cups. She was filledwith vague terror of what it would be. The sense of the oneness andunity of their fates was gone. 

Siegmund also was cowed by the threat of separation. He had moredefinite knowledge of the next move than had Helena. His heart wascertain of calamity, which would overtake him directly. He shrank away. Wildly he beat about to find a means of escape from the next day and itsconsequences. He did not want to go. Anything rather than go back. 

In the midst of their passion of fear the moon rose. Siegmund started tosee the rim appear ruddily beyond the sea. His struggling suddenlyceased, and he watched, spellbound, the oval horn of fiery gold come up, resolve itself. Some golden liquor dripped and spilled upon the farwaves, where it shook in ruddy splashes. The gold-red cup rose higher, looming before him very large, yet still not all discovered. By degreesthe horn of gold detached itself from the darkness at back of the waves. It was immense and terrible. When would the tip be placed upon the tableof the sea?

It stood at last, whole and calm, before him; then the night took upthis drinking-cup of fiery gold, lifting it with majestic movementoverhead, letting stream forth the wonderful unwasted liquor of goldover the sea--a libation. 

Siegmund looked at the shaking flood of gold and paling gold spreadwider as the night upraised the blanching crystal, poured out fartherand farther the immense libation from the whitening cup, till at lastthe moon looked frail and empty. 

And there, exhaustless in the night, the white light shook on the floorof the sea. He wondered how it would be gathered up. 'I gather it upinto myself, ' he said. And the stars and the cliffs and a few trees werewatching, too. 'If I have spilled my life, ' he thought, 'the unfamiliareyes of the land and sky will gather it up again. '

Turning to Helena, he found her face white and shining as the emptymoon. 

_Chapter 17_

Towards morning, Siegmund went to sleep. For four hours, until seveno'clock, the womb of sleep received him and nourished him again. 

'But it is finest of all to wake, ' he said, as the bright sunshine ofthe window, and the lumining green sunshine coming through the liftedhands of the leaves, challenged him into the open. 

The morning was exceedingly fair, and it looked at him so gently thathis blue eyes trembled with self-pity. A fragment of scarlet geraniumglanced up at him as he passed, so that amid the vermilion tyranny ofthe uniform it wore he could see the eyes of the flower, wistful, offering him love, as one sometimes see the eyes of a man beneath thebrass helmet of a soldier, and is startled. Everything looked at himwith the same eyes of tenderness, offering him, timidly, a little love. 

'They are all extraordinarily sweet, ' said Siegmund to the full-mouthedscabious and the awkward, downcast ragwort. Three or four butterfliesfluttered up and down in agitated little leaps, around him. Instinctively Siegmund put his hand forward to touch them. 

'The careless little beggars!' he said. 

When he came to the cliff tops there was the morning, very bravelydressed, rustling forward with a silken sound and much silken shining tomeet him. The battleships had gone; the sea was blue with a _panier_ ofdiamonds; the sky was full with a misty tenderness like love. Siegmundhad never recognized before the affection that existed between him andeverything. We do not realize how tremendously dear and indispensable tous are the hosts of common things, till we must leave them, and we breakour hearts. 

'We have been very happy together, ' everything seemed to say. 

Siegmund looked up into the eyes of the morning with a laugh. 

'It is very lovely, ' he said, 'whatever happens. '

So he went down to the beach; his dark blue eyes, darker from lastnight's experience, smiled always with the pride of love. He undressedby his usual altar-stone. 

'How closely familiar everything is, ' he thought. 'It seems almost as ifthe curves of this stone were rounded to fit in my soul. '

He touched the smooth white slope of the stone gently with discoveringfingers, in the same way as he touched the cheek of Helena, or of hisown babies. He found great pleasure in this feeling of intimacy withthings. A very soft wind, shy as a girl, put his arms round him, andseemed to lay its cheek against his chest. He placed his hands beneathhis arms, where the wind was caressing him, and his eyes opened withwondering pleasure. 

'They find no fault with me, ' he said. 'I suppose they are as fallibleas I, and so don't judge, ' he added, as he waded thigh-deep into thewater, thrusting it to hear the mock-angry remonstrance. 

'Once more, ' he said, and he took the sea in his arms. He swam veryquietly. The water buoyed him up, holding him closely clasped. He swamtowards the white rocks of the headlands; they rose before him likebeautiful buttressed gates, so glistening that he half expected to seefantail pigeons puffing like white irises in the niches, and whitepeacocks with dark green feet stepping down the terraces, trailing asheen of silver. 

'Helena is right, ' he said to himself as he swam, scarcely swimming, butmoving upon the bosom of the tide; 'she is right, it is all enchanted. Ihave got into her magic at last. Let us see what it is like. '

He determined to visit again his little bay. He swam carefully round theterraces, whose pale shadows through the swift-spinning emerald facetsof the water seemed merest fancy. Siegmund touched them with his foot;they were hard, cold, dangerous. He swam carefully. As he made for thearchway, the shadows of the headland chilled the water. There underwater, clamouring in a throng at the base of the submerged walls, weresea-women with dark locks, and young sea-girls, with soft hair, vividlygreen, striving to climb up out of the darkness into the morning, theirhair swirling in abandon. Siegmund was half afraid of theirfrantic efforts. 

But the tide carried him swiftly through the high gate into the porch. There was exultance in this sweeping entry. The skin-white, full-fleshedwalls of the archway were dappled with green lights that danced in andout among themselves. Siegmund was carried along in an invisiblechariot, beneath the jewel-stained walls. The tide swerved, threw him ashe swam against the inward-curving white rock; his elbow met the rock, and he was sick with pain. He held his breath, trying to get back thejoy and magic. He could not believe that the lovely, smooth side of therock, fair as his own side with its ripple of muscles, could have hurthim thus. He let the water carry him till he might climb out on to theshingle. There he sat upon a warm boulder, and twisted to look at hisarm. The skin was grazed, not very badly, merely a ragged scarlet patchno bigger than a carnation petal. The bruise, however, was painful, especially when, a minute or two later, he bent his arm. 

'No, ' said he pitiably to himself, 'it is impossible it should have hurtme. I suppose I was careless. '

Nevertheless, the aspect of the morning changed. He sat on the boulderlooking out on the sea. The azure sky and the sea laughed on, holding abright conversation one with another. The two headlands of the tiny baygossiped across the street of water. All the boulders and pebbles of thesea-shore played together. 

'Surely, ' said Siegmund, 'they take no notice of me; they do not care ajot or a tittle for me. I am a fool to think myself one with them. '

He contrasted this with the kindness of the morning as he had stood onthe cliffs. 

'I was mistaken, ' he said. 'It was an illusion. '

He looked wistfully out again. Like neighbours leaning from oppositewindows of an overhanging street, the headlands were occupied one withanother. White rocks strayed out to sea, followed closely by other whiterocks. Everything was busy, interested, occupied with its own pursuitand with its own comrades. Siegmund alone was without pursuitor comrade. 

'They will all go on the same; they will be just as gay. Even Helena, after a while, will laugh and take interest in others. What doI matter?'

Siegmund thought of the futility of death:

 We are not long for music and laughter, Love and desire and hate; I think we have no portion in them after We pass the gate. 

'Why should I be turned out of the game?' he asked himself, rebelling. He frowned, and answered: 'Oh, Lord!--the old argument!'

But the thought of his own expunging from the picture was very bitter. 

'Like the puff from the steamer's funnel, I should be gone. '

He looked at himself, at his limbs and his body in the pride of hismaturity. He was very beautiful to himself. 

'Nothing, in the place where I am, ' he said. 'Gone, like a puff of steamthat melts on the sunshine. '

Again Siegmund looked at the sea. It was glittering with laughter as ata joke. 

'And I, ' he said, lying down in the warm sand, 'I am nothing. I do notcount; I am inconsiderable. '

He set his teeth with pain. There were no tears, there was no relief. Aconvulsive gasping shook him as he lay on the sands. All the while hewas arguing with himself. 

'Well, ' he said, 'if I am nothing dead I am nothing alive. '

But the vulgar proverb arose--'Better a live dog than a dead lion, ' toanswer him. It seemed an ignominy to be dead. It meant, to beoverlooked, even by the smallest creature of God's earth. Surely thatwas a great ignominy. 

Helena, meanwhile, was bathing, for the last time, by the same sea-shorewith him. She was no swimmer. Her endless delight was to explore, todiscover small treasures. For her the world was still a great wonder-boxwhich hid innumerable sweet toys for surprises in all its crevices. Shehad bathed in many rock-pools' tepid baths, trying first one, thenanother. She had lain on the sand where the cold arms of the oceanlifted her and smothered her impetuously, like an awful lover. 

'The sea is a great deal like Siegmund, ' she said, as she rose panting, trying to dash her nostrils free from water. It was true; the sea as itflung over her filled her with the same uncontrollable terror as didSiegmund when he sometimes grew silent and strange in a tide of passion. 

She wandered back to her rock-pools; they were bright and docile; theydid not fling her about in a game of terror. She bent over watching theanemone's fleshy petals shrink from the touch of her shadow, and shelaughed to think they should be so needlessly fearful. The flowing tidetrickled noiselessly among the rocks, widening and deepening insidiouslyher little pools. Helena retreated towards a large cave round the bend. There the water gurgled under the bladder-wrack of the large stones; theair was cool and clammy. She pursued her way into the gloom, bending, though there was no need, shivering at the coarse feel of the seaweedbeneath her naked feet. The water came rustling up beneath the fucus asshe crept along on the big stones; it returned with a quiet gurgle whichmade her shudder, though even that was not disagreeable. It needed, forall that, more courage than was easy to summon before she could step offher stone into the black pool that confronted her. It was festoonedthick with weeds that slid under her feet like snakes. She scrambledhastily upwards towards the outlet. 

Turning, the ragged arch was before heir, brighter than the brightestwindow. It was easy to believe the light-fairies stood outside in athrong, excited with fine fear, throwing handfuls of light into thedragon's hole. 

'How surprised they will be to see me!' said Helena, scrambling forward, laughing. 

She stood still in the archway, astounded. The sea was blazing withwhite fire, and glowing with azure as coals glow red with heat below theflames. The sea was transfused with white burning, while over it hungthe blue sky in a glory, like the blue smoke of the fire of God. Helenastood still and worshipped. It was a moment of astonishment, when shestood breathless and blinded, involuntarily offering herself for athank-offering. She felt herself confronting God at home in His whiteincandescence, His fire settling on her like the Holy Spirit. Her lipswere parted in a woman's joy of adoration. 

The moment passed, and her thoughts hurried forward in confusion. 

'It is good, ' said Helena; 'it is very good. ' She looked again, and sawthe waves like a line of children racing hand in hand, the sunlightpursuing, catching hold of them from behind, as they ran wildly tillthey fell, caught, with the sunshine dancing upon them like a white dog. 

'It is really wonderful here!' said she; but the moment had gone, shecould not see again the grand burning of God among the waves. After awhile she turned away. 

As she stood dabbling her bathing-dress in a pool, Siegmund came overthe beach to her. 

'You are not gone, then?' he said. 

'Siegmund!' she exclaimed, looking up at him with radiant eyes, as if itcould not be possible that he had joined her in this rare place. Hisface was glowing with the sun's inflaming, but Helena did not noticethat his eyes were full of misery. 

'I, actually, ' he said, smiling. 

'I did not expect you, ' she said, still looking at him in radiantwonder. 'I could easier have expected'--she hesitated, struggled, andcontinued--'Eros walking by the sea. But you are like him, ' she said, looking radiantly up into Siegmund's face. 'Isn't it beautiful thismorning?' she added. 

Siegmund endured her wide, glad look for a moment, then he stooped andkissed her. He remained moving his hand in the pool, ashamed, and fullof contradiction. He was at the bitter point of farewell; could see, beyond the glamour around him, the ugly building of his real life. 

'Isn't the sea wonderful this morning?' asked Helena, as she wrung thewater from her costume. 

'It is very fine, ' he answered. He refrained from saying what his heartsaid: 'It is my last morning; it is not yours. It is my last morning, and the sea is enjoying the joke, and you are full of delight. '

'Yes, ' said Siegmund, 'the morning is perfect. '

'It is, ' assented Helena warmly. 'Have you noticed the waves? They arelike a line of children chased by a white dog. '

'Ay!' said Siegmund. 

'Didn't you have a good time?' she asked, touching with her finger-tipsthe nape of his neck as he stooped beside her. 

'I swam to my little bay again, ' he replied. 

'Did you?' she exclaimed, pleased. 

She sat down by the pool, in which she washed her feet free from sand, holding them to Siegmund to dry. 

'I am very hungry, ' she said. 

'And I, ' he agreed. 

'I feel quite established here, ' she said gaily, something in hisposition having reminded her of their departure. 

He laughed. 

'It seems another eternity before the three-forty-five train, doesn'tit?' she insisted. 

'I wish we might never go back, ' he said. 

Helena sighed. 

'It would be too much for life to give. We have had something, Siegmund, ' she said. 

He bowed his head, and did not answer. 

'It has been something, dear, ' she repeated. 

He rose and took her in his arms. 

'Everything, ' he said, his face muffled in the shoulder of her dress. Hecould smell her fresh and fine from the sea. 'Everything!' he said. 

She pressed her two hands on his head. 

'I did well, didn't I, Siegmund?' she asked. Helena felt theresponsibility of this holiday. She had proposed it; when he hadwithdrawn, she had insisted, refusing to allow him to take back hisword, declaring that she should pay the cost. He permitted her at last. 

'Wonderfully well, Helena, ' he replied. 

She kissed his forehead. 

'You are everything, ' he said. 

She pressed his head on her bosom. 

_Chapter 18_

Siegmund had shaved and dressed, and come down to breakfast. Mrs Curtissbrought in the coffee. She was a fragile little woman, of delicate, gentle manner. 

'The water would be warm this morning, ' she said, addressing no one inparticular. 

Siegmund stood on the hearth-rug with his hands behind him, swaying fromone leg to the other. He was embarrassed always by the presence of theamiable little woman; he could not feel at ease before strangers, in hiscapacity of accepted swain of Helena. 

'It was, ' assented Helena. 'It was as warm as new milk. '

'Ay, it would be, ' said the old lady, looking in admiration upon theexperience of Siegmund and his beloved. 'And did ye see the ships ofwar?' she asked. 

'No, they had gone, ' replied Helena. 

Siegmund swayed from foot to foot, rhythmically. 

'You'll be coming in to dinner today?' asked the old lady. 

Helena arranged the matter. 

'I think ye both look better, ' Mrs. Curtiss said. She glanced atSiegmund. 

He smiled constrainedly. 

'I thought ye looked so worn when you came, ' she said sympathetically. 

'He had been working hard, ' said Helena, also glancing at him. 

He bent his head, and was whistling without making any sound. 

'Ay, ' sympathized the little woman. 'And it's a very short time for you. What a pity ye can't stop for the fireworks at Cowes on Monday. They aregrand, so they say. '

Helena raised her eyebrows in polite interest. 'Have you never seenthem?' she asked. 

'No, ' replied Mrs. Curtiss. 'I've never been able to get; but I hope togo yet. '

'I hope you may, ' said Siegmund. 

The little woman beamed on him. Having won a word from him, she wasquite satisfied. 

'Well, ' she said brightly, 'the eggs must be done by now. '

She tripped out, to return directly. 

'I've brought you, ' she said, 'some of the Island cream, and some whitecurrants, if ye'll have them. You must think well of the Island, andcome back. '

'How could we help?' laughed Helena. 

'We will, ' smiled Siegmund. 

When finally the door was closed on her, Siegmund sat down in relief. Helena looked in amusement at him. She was perfectly self-possessed inpresence of the delightful little lady. 

'This is one of the few places that has ever felt like home to me, ' shesaid. She lifted a tangled bunch of fine white currants. 

'Ah!' exclaimed Siegmund, smiling at her. 

'One of the few places where everything is friendly, ' she said. 'Andeverybody. '

'You have made so many enemies?' he asked, with gentle irony. 

'Strangers, ' she replied. 'I seem to make strangers of all the people Imeet. '

She laughed in amusement at this _mot_. Siegmund looked at her intently. He was thinking of her left alone amongst strangers. 

'Need we go--need we leave this place of friends?' he said, as ifironically. He was very much afraid of tempting her. 

She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and counted: 'One, two, three, four, five hours, thirty-five minutes. It is an age yet, 'she laughed. 

Siegmund laughed too, as he accepted the particularly fine bunch ofcurrants she had extricated for him. 

_Chapter 19_

The air was warm and sweet in the little lane, remote from the sea, which led them along their last walk. On either side the white path wasa grassy margin thickly woven with pink convolvuli. Some of the recklesslittle flowers, so gay and evanescent, had climbed the trunks of an oldyew tree, and were looking up pertly at their rough host. 

Helena walked along, watching the flowers, and making fancies out ofthem. 

'Who called them "fairies' telephones"?' she said to herself. 'They aretiny children in pinafores. How gay they are! They are children dawdlingalong the pavement of a morning. How fortunate they are! See how theytake a wind-thrill! See how wide they are set to the sunshine! And whenthey are tired, they will curl daintily to sleep, and some fairies inthe dark will gather them away. They won't be here in the morning, shrivelled and dowdy . .. If only we could curl up and be gone, afterour day. .. . '

She looked at Siegmund. He was walking moodily beside her. 

'It is good when life holds no anti-climax, ' she said. 

'Ay!' he answered. Of course, he could not understand her meaning. 

She strayed into the thick grass, a sturdy white figure that walked withbent head, abstract, but happy. 

'What is she thinking?' he asked himself. 'She is sufficient toherself--she doesn't want me. She has her own private way of communingwith things, and is friends with them. '

'The dew has been very heavy, ' she said, turning, and looking up at himfrom under her brows, like a smiling witch. 

'I see it has, ' he answered. Then to himself he said: 'She can'ttranslate herself into language. She is incommunicable; she can't renderherself to the intelligence. So she is alone and a law unto herself: sheonly wants me to explore me, like a rock-pool, and to bathe in me. Aftera while, when I am gone, she will see I was not indispensable. .. . '

The lane led up to the eastern down. As they were emerging, they saw onthe left hand an extraordinarily spick and span red bungalow. The lowroof of dusky red sloped down towards the coolest green lawn, that wasedged and ornamented with scarlet, and yellow, and white flowersbrilliant with dew. 

A stout man in an alpaca jacket and panama hat was seated on the barelawn, his back to the sun, reading a newspaper. He tried in vain toavoid the glare of the sun on his reading. At last he closed the paperand looked angrily at the house--not at anything in particular. 

He irritably read a few more lines, then jerked up his head in suddendecision, glared at the open door of the house, and called:

'Amy! Amy!'

No answer was forthcoming. He flung down the paper and strode offindoors, his mien one of wrathful resolution. His voice was heardcalling curtly from the dining-room. There was a jingle of crockery ashe bumped the table leg in sitting down. 

'He is in a bad temper, ' laughed Siegmund. 

'Breakfast is late, ' said Helena with contempt. 

'Look!' said Siegmund. 

An elderly lady in black and white striped linen, a young lady inholland, both carrying some wild flowers, hastened towards the gardengate. Their faces were turned anxiously to the house. They were hot withhurrying, and had no breath for words. The girl pressed forward, openedthe gate for the lady in striped linen, who hastened over the lawn. Thenthe daughter followed, and vanished also under the shady veranda. 

There was a quick sound of women's low, apologetic voices, overridden bythe resentful abuse of the man. 

The lovers moved out of hearing. 

'Imagine that breakfast-table!' said Siegmund. 

'I feel, ' said Helena, with a keen twang of contempt in her voice, 'asif a fussy cock and hens had just scuffled across my path. '

'There are many such roosts, ' said Siegmund pertinently. 

Helena's cold scorn was very disagreeable to him. She talked to himwinsomely and very kindly as they crossed the open down to meet the nextincurving of the coast, and Siegmund was happy. But the sense ofhumiliation, which he had got from her the day before, and which hadfixed itself, bled him secretly, like a wound. This haemorrhage ofself-esteem tortured him to the end. 

Helena had rejected him. She gave herself to her fancies only. For sometime she had confused Siegmund with her god. Yesterday she had cried toher ideal lover, and found only Siegmund. It was the spear in the sideof his tortured self-respect. 

'At least, ' he said, in mortification of himself--'at least, someonemust recognize a strain of God in me--and who does? I don't believe init myself. '

And, moreover, in the intense joy and suffering of his realized passion, the island, with its sea and sky, had fused till, like a brilliant bead, all their beauty ran together out of the common ore, and Siegmund saw itnaked, saw the beauty of everything naked in the shifting magic of thisbead. The island would be gone tomorrow: he would look for the beautyand find the dirt. What was he to do?

'You know, Domine, ' said Helena--it was his old nickname she used--'youlook quite stern today. '

'I feel anything but stern, ' he laughed. 'Weaker than usual, in fact. '

'Yes, perhaps so, when you talk. Then you are really surprisinglygentle. But when you are silent, I am even afraid of you--you seemso grave. '

He laughed. 

'And shall I not be brave?' he said. 'Can't you smell _Fumum et opesstrepitumque Romae_?' He turned quickly to Helena. 'I wonder if that'sright, ' he said. 'It's years since I did a line of Latin, and I thoughtit had all gone. '

'In the first place, what does it mean?' said Helena calmly, 'for I canonly half translate. I have thrown overboard all my scrap-books ofsuch stuff. '

'Why, ' said Siegmund, rather abashed, 'only "the row and the smoke ofRome". But it is remarkable, Helena'--here the peculiar look of interestcame on his face again--'it is really remarkable that I should havesaid that. '

'Yes, you look surprised, ' smiled she. 

'But it must be twenty'--he counted--'twenty-two or three years since Ilearned that, and I forgot it--goodness knows how long ago. Like adrowning man, I have these memories before. .. . ' He broke off, smilingmockingly, to tease her. 

'Before you go back to London, ' said she, in a matter-of-fact, almostironical tone. She was inscrutable. This morning she could not bear tolet any deep emotion come uppermost. She wanted rest. 'No, ' she said, with calm distinctness, a few moments after, when they were climbing therise to the cliff's edge. 'I can't say that I smell the smoke of London. The mist-curtain is thick yet. There it is'--she pointed to the heavy, purple-grey haze that hung like arras on a wall, between the sloping skyand the sea. She thought of yesterday morning's mist-curtain, thick andblazing gold, so heavy that no wind could sway its fringe. 

They lay down in the dry grass, upon the gold bits of bird's-foottrefoil of the cliff's edge, and looked out to sea. A warm, drowsy calmdrooped over everything. 

'Six hours, ' thought Helena, 'and we shall have passed the mist-curtain. Already it is thinning. I could break it open with waving my hand. Iwill not wave my hand. '

She was exhausted by the suffering of the last night, so she refused toallow any emotion to move her this morning, till she was strong. Siegmund was also exhausted; but his thoughts laboured like ants, inspite of himself, striving towards a conclusion. 

Helena had rejected him. In his heart he felt that in this love affairalso he had been a failure. No matter how he contradicted himself, andsaid it was absurd to imagine he was a failure as Helena's lover, yet hefelt a physical sensation of defeat, a kind of knot in his breast whichneither reason, nor dialectics, nor circumstance, not even Helena, coulduntie. He had failed as lover to Helena. 

It was not surprising his marriage with Beatrice should provedisastrous. Rushing into wedlock as he had done, at the ripe age ofseventeen, he had known nothing of his woman, nor she of him. When hismind and soul set to develop, as Beatrice could not sympathize with hisinterests, he naturally inclined away from her, so that now, aftertwenty years, he was almost a stranger to her. That was not verysurprising. 

But why should he have failed with Helena?

The bees droned fitfully over the scented grass, aimlessly swinging inthe heat. Siegmund watched one gold and amber fellow lazily let go awhite clover-head, and boom in a careless curve out to sea, hummingsofter and softer as he reeled along in the giddy space. 

'The little fool!' said Siegmund, watching the black dot swallowed intothe light. 

No ship sailed the curving sea. The light danced in a whirl upon theripples. Everything else watched with heavy eyes of heat enhancement thewild spinning of the lights. 

'Even if I were free, ' he continued to think, 'we should only growapart, Helena and I. She would leave me. This time I should be thelaggard. She is young and vigorous; I am beginning to set. 

'Is that why I have failed? I ought to have had her in love sufficientlyto keep her these few days. I am not quick. I do not follow her orunderstand her swiftly enough. And I am always timid of compulsion. Icannot compel anybody to follow me. 

'So we are here. I am out of my depth. Like the bee, I was mad with thesight of so much joy, such a blue space, and now I shall find no footingto alight on. I have flown out into life beyond my strength to get back. When can I set my feet on when this is gone?'

The sun grew stronger. Slower and more slowly went the hawks ofSiegmund's mind, after the quarry of conclusion. He lay bare-headed, looking out to sea. The sun was burning deeper into his face and head. 

'I feel as if it were burning into me, ' thought Siegmund abstractedly. 'It is certainly consuming some part of me. Perhaps it is making meill. ' Meanwhile, perversely, he gave his face and his hot black hairto the sun. 

Helena lay in what shadow he afforded. The heat put out all herthought-activity. Presently she said:

'This heat is terrible, Siegmund. Shall we go down to the water?'

They climbed giddily down the cliff path. Already they were somewhatsun-intoxicated. Siegmund chose the hot sand, where no shade was, onwhich to lie. 

'Shall we not go under the rocks?' said Helena. 

'Look!' he said, 'the sun is beating on the cliffs. It is hotter, moresuffocating, there. '

So they lay down in the glare, Helena watching the foam retreat slowlywith a cool splash; Siegmund thinking. The naked body of heatwas dreadful. 

'My arms, Siegmund, ' said she. 'They feel as if they were dipped infire. '

Siegmund took them, without a word, and hid them under his coat. 

'Are you sure it is not bad for you--your head, Siegmund? Are you sure?'

He laughed stupidly. 

'That is all right, ' he said. He knew that the sun was burning throughhim, and doing him harm, but he wanted the intoxication. 

As he looked wistfully far away over the sea at Helena's mist-curtain, he said:

'I _think_ we should be able to keep together if'--he faltered--'if onlyI could have you a little longer. I have never had you . .. '

Some sound of failure, some tone telling her it was too late, some ringof despair in his quietness, made Helena cling to him wildly, with asavage little cry as if she were wounded. She clung to him, almostbeside herself. She could not lose him, she could not spare him. Shewould not let him go. Helena was, for the moment, frantic. 

He held her safely, saying nothing until she was calmer, when, with hislips on her cheek, he murmured:

'I should be able, shouldn't I, Helena?'

'You are always able!' she cried. 'It is I who play with you at hiding. '

'I have really had you so little, ' he said. 

'Can't you forget it, Siegmund?' she cried. 'Can't you forget it? It wasonly a shadow, Siegmund. It was a lie, it was nothing real. Can't youforget it, dear?'

'You can't do without me?' he asked. 

'If I lose you I am lost, ' answered she with swift decision. She had noknowledge of weeping, yet her tears were wet on his face. He held hersafely; her arms were hidden under his coat. 

'I will have no mercy on those shadows the next time they come betweenus, ' said Helena to herself. 'They may go back to hell. '

She still clung to him, craving so to have him that he could not be reftaway. 

Siegmund felt very peaceful. He lay with his arms about her, listeningto the backward-creeping tide. All his thoughts, like bees, were flownout to sea and lost. 

'If I had her more, I should understand her through and through. If wewere side by side we should grow together. If we could stay here, Ishould get stronger and more upright. '

This was the poor heron of quarry the hawks of his mind had struck. 

Another hour fell like a foxglove bell from the stalk. There were onlytwo red blossoms left. Then the stem would have set to seed. Helenaleaned her head upon the breast of Siegmund, her arms clasping, underhis coat, his body, which swelled and sank gently, with the quiet ofgreat power. 

'If, ' thought she, 'the whole clock of the world could stand still now, and leave us thus, me with the lift and fall of the strong body ofSiegmund in my arms. .. . '

But the clock ticked on in the heat, the seconds marked off by thefalling of the waves, repeated so lightly, and in such fragile rhythm, that it made silence sweet. 

'If now, ' prayed Siegmund, 'death would wipe the sweat from me, and itwere dark. .. . '

But the waves softly marked the minutes, retreating farther, leaving thebare rocks to bleach and the weed to shrivel. 

Gradually, like the shadow on a dial, the knowledge that it was time torise and go crept upon them. Although they remained silent, each knewthat the other felt the same weight of responsibility, the shadow-fingerof the sundial travelling over them. The alternative was, not to return, to let the finger travel and be gone. But then . .. Helena knew she mustnot let the time cross her; she must rise before it was too late, andtravel before the coming finger. Siegmund hoped she would not get up. Helay in suspense, waiting. 

At last she sat up abruptly. 

'It is time, Siegmund, ' she said. 

He did not answer, he did not look at her, but lay as she had left him. She wiped her face with her handkerchief, waiting. Then she bent overhim. He did not look at her. She saw his forehead was swollen andinflamed with the sun. Very gently she wiped from it the glisteningsweat. He closed his eyes, and she wiped his cheeks and his mouth. Stillhe did not look at her. She bent very close to him, feeling her heartcrushed with grief for him. 

'We must go, Siegmund, ' she whispered. 

'All right, ' he said, but still he did not move. 

She stood up beside him, shook herself, and tried to get a breath ofair. She was dazzled blind by the sunshine. 

Siegmund lay in the bright light, with his eyes closed, never moving. His face was inflamed, but fixed like a mask. 

Helena waited, until the terror of the passing of the hour was toostrong for her. She lifted his hand, which lay swollen with heat on thesand, and she tried gently to draw him. 

'We shall be too late, ' she said in distress. 

He sighed and sat up, looking out over the water. 

Helena could not bear to see him look so vacant and expressionless. Sheput her arm round his neck, and pressed his head against her skirt. 

Siegmund knew he was making it unbearable for her. Pulling himselftogether, he bent his head from the sea, and said:

'Why, what time is it?'

He took out his watch, holding it in his hand. Helena still held hisleft hand, and had one arm round his neck. 

'I can't see the figures, ' he said. 'Everything is dimmed, as if it werecoming dark. '

'Yes, ' replied Helena, in that reedy, painful tone of hers. 'My eyeswere the same. It is the strong sunlight. '

'I can't, ' he repeated, and he was rather surprised--'I can't see thetime. Can you?'

She stooped down and looked. 

'It is half past one, ' she said. 

Siegmund hated her voice as she spoke. There was still sufficient timeto catch the train. He stood up, moved inside his clothing, saying: 'Ifeel almost stunned by the heat. I can hardly see, and all my feeling inmy body is dulled. '

'Yes, ' answered Helena, 'I am afraid it will do you harm. '

'At any rate, ' he smiled as if sleepily, 'I have had enough. If it's toomuch--what _is_ too much?'

They went unevenly over the sand, their eyes sun-dimmed. 

'We are going back--we are going back!' the heart of Helena seemed torun hot, beating these words. 

They climbed the cliff path toilsomely. Standing at the top, on the edgeof the grass, they looked down the cliffs at the beach and over the sea. The strand was wide, forsaken by the sea, forlorn with rocks bleachingin the sun, and sand and seaweed breathing off their painful scent uponthe heat. The sea crept smaller, farther away; the sky stood still. Siegmund and Helena looked hopelessly out on their beautiful, incandescent world. They looked hopelessly at each other, Siegmund'smood was gentle and forbearing. He smiled faintly at Helena, thenturned, and, lifting his hand to his mouth in a kiss for the beauty hehad enjoyed, '_Addio_!' he said. 

He turned away, and, looking from Helena landwards, he said, smilingpeculiarly:

'It reminds me of Traviata--an "_Addio_" at every verse-end. '

She smiled with her mouth in acknowledgement of his facetious irony; itjarred on her. He was pricked again by her supercilious reserve. '_Addi-i-i-i-o, Addi-i-i-o_!' he whistled between his teeth, hissing outthe Italian's passion-notes in a way that made Helena clench her fists. 

'I suppose, ' she said, swallowing, and recovering her voice to checkthis discord--'I suppose we shall have a fairly easy journey--Thursday. '

'I don't know, ' said Siegmund. 

'There will not be very many people, ' she insisted. 

'I think, ' he said, in a very quiet voice, 'you'd better let me go bythe South-Western from Portsmouth while you go on by the Brighton. '

'But why?' she exclaimed in astonishment. 

'I don't want to sit looking at you all the way, ' he said. 

'But why should you?' she exclaimed. 

He laughed. 

'Indeed, no!' she said. 'We shall go together. '

'Very well, ' he answered. 

They walked on in silence towards the village. As they drew near thelittle post office, he said:

'I suppose I may as well wire them that I shall be home tonight. '

'You haven't sent them any word?' she asked. 

He laughed. They came to the open door of the little shop. He stoodstill, not entering. Helena wondered what he was thinking. 

'Shall I?' he asked, meaning, should he wire to Beatrice. His manner wasrather peculiar. 

'Well, I should think so, ' faltered Helena, turning away to look at thepostcards in the window. Siegmund entered the shop. It was dark andcumbered with views, cheap china ornaments, and toys. He asked for atelegraph form. 

'My God!' he said to himself bitterly as he took the pencil. He couldnot sign the abbreviated name his wife used towards him. He scribbledhis surname, as he would have done to a stranger. As he watched theamiable, stout woman counting up his words carefully, pointing with herfinger, he felt sick with irony. 

'That's right, ' she said, picking up the sixpence and taking the form tothe instrument. 'What beautiful weather!' she continued. 'It will bemaking you sorry to leave us. '

'There goes my warrant, ' thought Siegmund, watching the flimsy bit ofpaper under the post-mistress's heavy hand. 

'Yes--it is too bad, isn't it, ' he replied, bowing and laughing to thewoman. 

'It is, sir, ' she answered pleasantly. 'Good morning. '

He came out of the shop still smiling, and when Helena turned from thepostcards to look at him, the lines of laughter remained over his facelike a mask. She glanced at his eyes for a sign; his facial expressiontold her nothing; his eyes were just as inscrutable, which made herfalter with dismay. 

'What is he thinking of?' she asked herself. Her thoughts flashed back. 'And why did he ask me so peculiarly whether he should wire themat home?'

'Well, ' said Siegmund, 'are there any postcards?'

'None that I care to take, ' she replied. 'Perhaps you would like one ofthese?'

She pointed to some faded-looking cards which proved to be imaginaryviews of Alum Bay done in variegated sand. Siegmund smiled. 

'I wonder if they dribbled the sand on with a fine glass tube, ' he said. 

'Or a brush, ' said Helena. 

'She does not understand, ' said Siegmund to himself. 'And whatever I doI must not tell her. I should have thought she would understand. '

As he walked home beside her there mingled with his other feelingsresentment against her. Almost he hated her. 

_Chapter 20_

At first they had a carriage to themselves. They sat opposite each otherwith averted faces, looking out of the windows and watching the houses, the downs dead asleep in the sun, the embankments of the railway withexhausted hot flowers go slowly past out of their reach. They felt as ifthey were being dragged away like criminals. Unable to speak or think, they stared out of the windows, Helena struggling in vain to keep backher tears, Siegmund labouring to breathe normally. 

At Yarmouth the door was snatched open, and there was a confusion ofshouting and running; a swarm of humanity, clamouring, attached itselfat the carriage doorway, which was immediately blocked by a stout manwho heaved a leather bag in front of him as he cried in German that herewas room for all. Faces innumerable--hot, blue-eyed faces--strained tolook over his shoulders at the shocked girl and the amazed Siegmund. 

There entered eight Germans into the second-class compartment, five menand three ladies. When at last the luggage was stowed away they sankinto the seats. The last man on either side to be seated lowered himselfcarefully, like a wedge, between his two neighbours. Siegmund watchedthe stout man, the one who had led the charge, settling himself betweenhis large lady and the small Helena. The latter crushed herself againstthe side of the carriage. The German's hips came down tight against her. She strove to lessen herself against the window, to escape the pressureof his flesh, whose heat was transmitted to her. The man squeezed in theopposite direction. 

'I am afraid I press you, ' he said, smiling in his gentle, chivalricGerman fashion. Helena glanced swiftly at him. She liked his grey eyes, she liked the agreeable intonation, and the pleasant sound of his words. 

'Oh no, ' she answered. 'You do not crush me. '

Almost before she had finished the words she turned away to the window. The man seemed to hesitate a moment, as if recovering himself from aslight rebuff, before he could address his lady with the good-humouredremark in German: 'Well, and have we not managed it very nicely, eh?'

The whole party began to talk in German with great animation. They toldeach other of the quaint ways of this or the other; they joked loudlyover 'Billy'--this being a nickname discovered for the GermanEmperor--and what he would be saying of the Czar's trip; they questionedeach other, and answered each other concerning the places they weregoing to see, with great interest, displaying admirable knowledge. Theywere pleased with everything; they extolled things English. 

Helena's stout neighbour, who, it seemed, was from Dresden, began totell anecdotes. He was a _raconteur_ of the naïve type: he talked withface, hands, with his whole body. Now and again he would give littlespurts in his seat. After one of these he must have become aware ofHelena--who felt as if she were enveloped by a soft stove--struggling toescape his compression. He stopped short, lifted his hat, and smilingbeseechingly, said in his persuasive way:

'I am sorry. I am sorry. I compress you!' He glanced round inperplexity, seeking some escape or remedy. Finding none, he turned toher again, after having squeezed hard against his lady to freeHelena, and said:

'Forgive me, I am sorry. '

'You are forgiven, ' replied Helena, suddenly smiling into his face withher rare winsomeness. The whole party, attentive, relaxed into a smileat this. The good humour was complete. 

'Thank you, ' said the German gratefully. 

Helena turned away. The talk began again like the popping of corn; the_raconteur_ resumed his anecdote. Everybody was waiting to laugh. Helenarapidly wearied of trying to follow the tale. Siegmund had made noattempt. He had watched, with the others, the German's apologies, andthe sight of his lover's face had moved him more than he could tell. 

She had a peculiar, childish wistfulness at times, and with this anintangible aloofness that pierced his heart. It seemed to him he shouldnever know her. There was a remoteness about her, an estrangementbetween her and all natural daily things, as if she were of an unknownrace that never can tell its own story. This feeling always movedSiegmund's pity to its deepest, leaving him poignantly helpless. Thissame foreignness, revealed in other ways, sometimes made him hate her. It was as if she would sacrifice him rather than renounce her foreignbirth. There was something in her he could never understand, so thatnever, never could he say he was master of her as she was of himthe mistress. 

As she smiled and turned away from the German, mute, uncomplaining, likea child wise in sorrow beyond its years, Siegmund's resentment againsther suddenly took fire, and blazed him with sheer pain of pity. She wasvery small. Her quiet ways, and sometimes her impetuous clinging madeher seem small; for she was very strong. But Siegmund saw her now, small, quiet, uncomplaining, living for him who sat and looked at her. But what would become of her when he had left her, when she was alone, little foreigner as she was, in this world, which apologizes when it hasdone the hurt, too blind to see beforehand? Helena would be left behind;death was no way for her. She could not escape thus with him from thishouse of strangers which she called 'life'. She had to go on alone, likea foreigner who cannot learn the strange language. 

'What will she do?' Siegmund asked himself, 'when her loneliness comesupon her like a horror, and she has no one to go to. She will come tothe memory of me for a while, and that will take her over till herstrength is established. But what then?'

Siegmund could find no answer. He tried to imagine her life. It would goon, after his death, just in the same way, for a while, and then? He hadnot the faintest knowledge of how she would develop. What would she dowhen she was thirty-eight, and as old as himself? He could not conceive. Yet she would not die, of that he was certain. 

Siegmund suddenly realized that he knew nothing of her life, her realinner life. She was a book written in characters unintelligible to himand to everybody. He was tortured with the problem of her till it becameacute, and he felt as if his heart would burst inside him. As a boy hehad experienced the same sort of feeling after wrestling for an hourwith a problem in Euclid, for he was capable of great concentration. 

He felt Helena looking at him. Turning, he found her steady, unswervingeyes fixed on him, so that he shrank confused from them. She smiled: byan instinctive movement she made him know that she wanted him to holdher hand. He leaned forward and put his hand over hers. She had peculiarhands, small, with a strange, delightful silkiness. Often they were coolor cold; generally they lay unmoved within his clasp, but then they wereinstinct with life, not inert. Sometimes he would feel a peculiarjerking in his pulse, very much like electricity, when he held her hand. Occasionally it was almost painful, and felt as if a little virtue werepassing out of his blood. But that he dismissed as nonsense. 

The Germans were still rattling away, perspiring freely, wiping theirfaces with their handkerchiefs as they laughed, moving inside theirclothing, which was sticking to their sides. Siegmund had not noticedthem for some time, he was so much absorbed. But Helena, though shesympathized with her fellow-passengers, was tormented almost beyondendurance by the noise, the heat of her neighbour's body, the atmosphereof the crowded carriage, and her own emotion. The only thing that couldrelieve her was the hand of Siegmund soothing her in its hold. 

She looked at him with the same steadiness which made her eyes feelheavy upon him, and made him shrink. She wanted his strength of nerve tosupport her, and he submitted at once, his one aim being to give her outof himself whatever she wanted. 

_Chapter 21_

The tall white yachts in a throng were lounging off the roads of Ryde. It was near the regatta time, so these proud creatures had flown loftilytogether, and now flitted hither and thither among themselves, like aconcourse of tall women, footing the waves with superb touch. ToSiegmund they were very beautiful, but removed from him, as dancerscrossing the window-lights are removed from the man who looks up fromthe street. He saw the Solent and the world of glamour flying gay assnow outside, where inside was only Siegmund, tired, dispirited, without any joy. 

He and Helena had climbed among coils of rope on to the prow of theirsteamer, so they could catch a little spray of speed on their faces tostimulate them. The sea was very bright and crowded. White sails leanedslightly and filed along the roads; two yachts with sails of amberfloated, it seemed, without motion, amid the eclipsed blue of the day;small boats with red and yellow flags fluttered quickly, trailing thesea with colour; a pleasure steamer coming from Cowes swung her softstout way among the fleeting ships; high in the background weremen-of-war, a long line, each one threading tiny triangles of flagsthrough a sky dim with distance. 

'It is all very glad, ' said Siegmund to himself, 'but it seems to befanciful. '

He was out of it. Already he felt detached from life. He belonged to hisdestination. It is always so: we have no share in the beauty that liesbetween us and our goal. 

Helena watched with poignant sorrow all the agitation of colour on theblue afternoon. 

'We must leave it; we must pass out of it, ' she lamented, over and overagain. Each new charm she caught eagerly. 

'I like the steady purpose of that brown-sailed tramp, ' she said toherself, watching a laden coaster making for Portsmouth. 

They were still among the small shipping of Ryde. Siegmund and Helena, as they looked out, became aware of a small motor-launch heading acrosstheir course towards a yacht whose tall masts were drawn clean on thesky. The eager launch, its nose up as if to breathe, was racing over theswell like a coursing dog. A lady, in white, and a lad with dark headand white jersey were leaning in the bows; a gentleman was bending oversome machinery in the middle of the boat, while the sailor in the lowstern was also stooping forward attending to something. The steamer wassweeping onwards, huge above the water; the dog of a boat was coursingstraight across her track. The lady saw the danger first. Stretchingforward, she seized the arm of the lad and held him firm, making nosound, but watching the forward menace of the looming steamer. 

'Look!' cried Helena, catching hold of Siegmund. He was alreadywatching. Suddenly the steamer bell clanged. The gentleman looked up, with startled, sunburned face; then he leaped to the stern. The launchveered. It and the steamer closed together like a pair of scissors. Thelady, still holding the boy, looked up with an expressionless face atthe high sweeping chisel of the steamer's bows; the husband stood rigid, staring ahead. No sound was to be heard save the rustling of water underthe bows. The scissors closed, the launch skelped forward like a dogfrom in front of the traffic. It escaped by a yard or two. Then, like adog, it seemed to look round. The gentleman in the stern glanced backquickly. He was a handsome, dark-haired man with dark eyes. His face wasas if carven out of oak, set and grey-brown. Then he looked to thesteering of his boat. No one had uttered a sound. From the tiny boatcoursing low on the water, not a sound, only tense waiting. The launchraced out of danger towards the yacht. The gentleman, with a briefgesture, put his man in charge again, whilst he himself went forward tothe lady. He was a handsome man, very proud in his movements; and she, in her bearing, was prouder still. She received him almost withindifference. 

Helena turned to Siegmund. He took both her hands and pressed them, whilst she looked at him with eyes blind with emotion. She was white tothe lips, and heaving like the buoy in the wake of the steamer. Thenoise of life had suddenly been hushed, and each heart had heard for amoment the noiselessness of death. How everyone was white and gasping!They strove, on every hand, to fill the day with noise and the colour oflife again. 

'By Jove, that was a near thing!'

'Ah, that has made me feel bad!' said a woman. 

'A French yacht, ' said somebody. 

Helena was waiting for the voice of Siegmund. But he did not know whatto say. Confused, he repeated:

'That was a close shave. '

Helena clung to him, searching his face. She felt his difference fromherself. There was something in his experience that made him different, quiet, with a peculiar expression as if he were pained. 

'Ah, dear Lord!' he was saying to himself. 'How bright and whole the dayis for them! If God had suddenly put His hand over the sun, andswallowed us up in a shadow, they could not have been more startled. That man, with his fine, white-flannelled limbs and his dark head, hasno suspicion of the shadow that supports it all. Between the blueness ofthe sea and the sky he passes easy as a gull, close to the fine whiteseamew of his mate, amid red flowers of flags, and soft birds of ships, and slow-moving monsters of steamboats. 

'For me the day is transparent and shrivelling. I can see the darknessthrough its petals. But for him it is a fresh bell-flower, in which hefumbles with delights like a bee. 

'For me, quivering in the interspaces of the atmosphere, is the darknessthe same that fills in my soul. I can see death urging itself into life, the shadow supporting the substance. For my life is burning an invisibleflame. The glare of the light of myself, as I burn on the fuel of death, is not enough to hide from me the source and the issue. For what is alife but a flame that bursts off the surface of darkness, and tapersinto the darkness again? But the death that issues differs from thedeath that was the source. At least, I shall enrich death with a potentshadow, if I do not enrich life. '

'Wasn't that woman fine!' said Helena. 

'So perfectly still, ' he answered. 

'The child realized nothing, ' she said. 

Siegmund laughed, then leaned forward impulsively to her. 

'I am always so sorry, ' he said, 'that the human race is urgedinevitably into a deeper and deeper realization of life. '

She looked at him, wondering what provoked such a remark. 

'I guess, ' she said slowly, after a while, 'that the man, the sailor, will have a bad time. He was abominably careless. '

'He was careful of something else just then, ' said Siegmund, who hatedto hear her speak in cold condemnation. 'He was attending to themachinery or something. '

'That was scarcely his first business, ' said she, rather sarcastic. 

Siegmund looked at her. She seemed very hard in judgement--very blind. Sometimes his soul surged against her in hatred. 

'Do you think the man _wanted_ to drown the boat?' he asked. 

'He nearly succeeded, ' she replied. 

There was antagonism between them. Siegmund recognized in Helena theworld sitting in judgement, and he hated it. 'But, after all, ' hethought, I suppose it is the only way to get along, to judge the eventand not the person. I have a disease of sympathy, a vice ofexoneration. '

Nevertheless, he did not love Helena as a judge. He thought rather ofthe woman in the boat. She was evidently one who watched the sources oflife, saw it great and impersonal. 

'Would the woman cry, or hug and kiss the boy when she got on board?' heasked. 

'I rather think not. Why?' she replied. 

'I hope she didn't, ' he said. 

Helena sat watching the water spurt back from the bows. She was verymuch in love with Siegmund. He was suggestive; he stimulated her. But toher mind he had not her own dark eyes of hesitation; he was swift andproud as the wind. She never realized his helplessness. 

Siegmund was gathering strength from the thought of that other woman'scourage. If she had so much restraint as not to cry out, or alarm theboy, if she had so much grace not to complain to her husband, surely hehimself might refrain from revealing his own fear of Helena, and fromlamenting his hard fate. 

They sailed on past the chequered round towers. The sea opened, and theylooked out to eastward into the sea-space. Siegmund wanted to flee. Heyearned to escape down the open ways before him. Yet he knew he would becarried on to London. He watched the sea-ways closing up. The shore cameround. The high old houses stood flat on the right hand. The shore sweptround in a sickle, reaping them into the harbour. There the old_Victory_, gay with myriad pointed pennons, was harvested, saved fora trophy. 

'It is a dreadful thing, ' thought Siegmund, 'to remain as a trophy whenthere is nothing more to do. ' He watched the landing-stages swoopingnearer. There were the trains drawn up in readiness. At the other end ofthe train was London. 

He could scarcely bear to have Helena before him for another two hours. The suspense of that protracted farewell, while he sat opposite her inthe beating train, would cost too much. He longed to be releasedfrom her. 

They had got their luggage, and were standing at the foot of the ladder, in the heat of the engines and the smell of hot oil, waiting for thecrowd to pass on, so that they might ascend and step off the ship on tothe mainland. 

'Won't you let me go by the South-Western, and you by the Brighton?'asked Siegmund, hesitating, repeating the morning's question. 

Helena looked at him, knitting her brows with misgiving and perplexity. 

'No, ' she replied. 'Let us go together. '

Siegmund followed her up the iron ladder to the quay. 

There was no great crowd on the train. They easily found a second-classcompartment without occupants. He swung the luggage on the rack and satdown, facing Helena. 

'Now, ' said he to himself, 'I wish I were alone. '

He wanted to think and prepare himself. 

Helena, who was thinking actively, leaned forward to him to say:

'Shall I not go down to Cornwall?'

By her soothing willingness to do anything for him, Siegmund knew thatshe was dogging him closely. He could not bear to have his anxietyprotracted. 

'But you have promised Louisa, have you not?' he replied. 

'Oh, well!' she said, in the peculiar slighting tone she had when shewished to convey the unimportance of affairs not touching him. 

'Then you must go, ' he said. 

'But, ' she began, with harsh petulance, 'I do not want to go down toCornwall with _Louisa and Olive_'--she accentuated the two names--'after_this_, ' she added. 

'Then Louisa will have no holiday--and you have promised, ' he saidgravely. 

Helena looked at him. She saw he had decided that she should go. 

'Is my promise so _very_ important?' she asked. She glanced angrily atthe three ladies who were hesitating in the doorway. Nevertheless, theladies entered, and seated themselves at the opposite end of thecarriage. Siegmund did not know whether he were displeased or relievedby their intrusion. If they had stayed out, he might have held Helena inhis arms for still another hour. As it was, she could not harass himwith words. He tried not to look at her, but to think. 

The train at last moved out of the station. As it passed throughPortsmouth, Siegmund remembered his coming down, on the Sunday. Itseemed an indefinite age ago. He was thankful that he sat on the side ofthe carriage opposite from the one he had occupied five days before. Theafternoon of the flawless sky was ripening into evening. The chimneysand the sides of the houses of Portsmouth took on that radiantappearance which transfigures the end of day in town. A rich bloom oflight appears on the surfaces of brick and stone. 

'It will go on, ' thought Siegmund, 'being gay of an evening, for ever. And I shall miss it all!'

But as soon as the train moved into the gloom of the Town station, hebegan again:

'Beatrice will be proud, and silent as steel when I get home. She willsay nothing, thank God--nor shall I. That will expedite matters: therewill be no interruptions. .. . 

'But we cannot continue together after this. Why should I discussreasons for and against? We cannot. She goes to a cottage in thecountry. Already I have spoken of it to her. I allow her all I can of mymoney, and on the rest I manage for myself in lodgings in London. Very good. 

'But when I am comparatively free I cannot live alone. I shall wantHelena; I shall remember the children. If I have the one, I shall bedamned by the thought of the other. This bruise on my mind will neverget better. Helena says she would never come to me; but she would, outof pity for me. I know she would. 

'But then, what then? Beatrice and the children in the country, and menot looking after the children. Beatrice is thriftless. She would be inendless difficulty. It would be a degradation to me. She would keep ared sore inflamed against me; I should be a shameful thing in her mouth. Besides, there would go all her strength. She would not make anyefforts. "He has brought it on us, " she would say; "let him see what theresult is. " And things would go from bad to worse with them. It would bea gangrene of shame. 

'And Helena--I should have nothing but mortification. When she wasasleep I could not look at her. She is such a strange, incongruouscreature. But I should be responsible for her. She believes in me as ifI had the power of God. What should I think of myself?'

Siegmund leaned with his head against the window, watching the countrywhirl past, but seeing nothing. He thought imaginatively, and hisimagination destroyed him. He pictured Beatrice in the country. Hesketched the morning--breakfast haphazard at a late hour; the elderchildren rushing off without food, miserable and untidy, the youngestbewildered under her swift, indifferent preparations for school. Hethought of Beatrice in the evening, worried and irritable, her billsunpaid, the work undone, declaiming lamentably against the cruelty ofher husband, who had abandoned her to such a burden of care while hetook his pleasure elsewhere. 

This line exhausted or intolerable, Siegmund switched off to theconsideration of his own life in town. He would go to America; theagreement was signed with the theatre manager. But America would be onlya brief shutting of the eyes and closing of the mouth. He would wait forthe home-coming to Helena, and she would wait for him. It wasinevitable; then would begin--what? He would never have enough money tokeep Helena, even if he managed to keep himself. Their meetings wouldthen be occasional and clandestine. Ah, it was intolerable!

'If I were rich, ' said Siegmund, 'all would be plain. I would give eachof my children enough, and Beatrice, and we would go away; but I amnearly forty; I have no genius; I shall never be rich, ' Round and roundwent his thoughts like oxen over a threshing floor, treading out thegrain. Gradually the chaff flew away; gradually the corn of convictiongathered small and hard upon the floor. 

As he sat thinking, Helena leaned across to him and laid her hand on hisknee. 

'If I have made things more difficult, ' she said, her voice harsh withpain, 'you will forgive me. '

He started. This was one of the cruel cuts of pain that love gives, filling the eyes with blood. Siegmund stiffened himself; slowly hesmiled, as he looked at her childish, plaintive lips, and her large eyeshaunted with pain. 

'Forgive you?' he repeated. 'Forgive you for five days of perfecthappiness; the only real happiness I have ever known!'

Helena tightened her fingers on his knee. She felt herself stinging withpainful joy; but one of the ladies was looking her curiously. She leanedback in her place, and turned to watch at the shocks of corn strikeswiftly, in long rows, across her vision. 

Siegmund, also quivering, turned his face to the window, where therotation of the wide sea-flat helped the movement of his thought. Helenahad interrupted him. She had bewildered his thoughts from their hawking, so that they struck here and there, wildly, among small, pitiful preythat was useless, conclusions which only hindered the bringing home ofthe final convictions. 

'What will she do?' cried Siegmund, 'What will she do when I am gone?What will become of her? Already she has no aim in life; then she willhave no object. Is it any good my going if I leave her behind? What aninextricable knot this is! But what will she do?'

It was a question she had aroused before, a question which he couldnever answer; indeed, it was not for him to answer. 

They wound through the pass of the South Downs. As Siegmund, lookingbackward, saw the northern slope of the downs swooping smoothly, in agreat, broad bosom of sward, down to the body of the land, he warmedwith sudden love for the earth; there the great downs were, naked like abreast, leaning kindly to him. The earth is always kind; it loves us, and would foster us like a nurse. The downs were big and tender andsimple. Siegmund looked at the farm, folded in a hollow, and he wonderedwhat fortunate folk were there, nourished and quiet, hearing the vagueroar of the train that was carrying him home. 

Up towards Arundel the cornfields of red wheat were heavy with gold. Itwas evening, when the green of the trees went out, leaving dark shapesproud upon the sky; but the red wheat was forged in the sunset, hot andmagnificent. Siegmund almost gloated as he smelled the ripe corn, andopened his eyes to its powerful radiation. For a moment he forgoteverything, amid the forging of red fields of gold in the smithy of thesunset. Like sparks, poppies blew along the railway-banks, a crimsontrain. Siegmund waited, through the meadows, for the next wheat-field. It came like the lifting of yellow-hot metal out of the gloom ofdarkened grass-lands. 

Helena was reassured by the glamour of evening over ripe Sussex. Shebreathed the land now and then, while she watched the sky. The sunsetwas stately. The blue-eyed day, with great limbs, having fought itsvictory and won, now mounted triumphant on its pyre, and with white armsuplifted took the flames, which leaped like blood about its feet. Theday died nobly, so she thought. 

One gold cloud, as an encouragement tossed to her, followed the train. 

'Surely that cloud is for us, ' said she, as she watched it anxiously. Dark trees brushed between it and her, while she waited in suspense. Itcame, unswerving, from behind the trees. 

'I am sure it is for us, ' she repeated. A gladness came into her eyes. Still the cloud followed the train. She leaned forward to Siegmund andpointed out the cloud to him. She was very eager to give him a little ofher faith. 

'It has come with us quite a long way. Doesn't it seem to you to betravelling with us? It is the golden hand; it is the good omen. '

She then proceeded to tell him the legend from 'Aylwin'. 

Siegmund listened, and smiled. The sunset was handsome on his face. 

Helena was almost happy. 

'I am right, ' said he to himself. I am right in my conclusions, andHelena will manage by herself afterwards. I am right; there is the handto confirm it. '

The heavy train settled down to an easy, unbroken stroke, swinging likea greyhound over the level northwards. All the time Siegmund wasmechanically thinking the well-known movement from the Valkyrie Ride, his whole self beating to the rhythm. It seemed to him there was acertain grandeur in this flight, but it hurt him with its heavyinsistence of catastrophe. He was afraid; he had to summon his courageto sit quiet. For a time he was reassured; he believed he was going ontowards the right end. He hunted through the country and the sky, askingof everything, 'Am I right? Am I right?' He did not mind what happenedto him, so long as he felt it was right. What he meant by 'right' he didnot trouble to think, but the question remained. For a time he had beenreassured; then a dullness came over him, when his thoughts were stupid, and he merely submitted to the rhythm of the train, which stamped himdeeper and deeper with a brand of catastrophe. 

The sun had gone down. Over the west was a gush of brightness as thefountain of light bubbled lower. The stars, like specks of froth fromthe foaming of the day, clung to the blue ceiling. Like spiders theyhung overhead, while the hosts of the gold atmosphere poured out of thehive by the western low door. Soon the hive was empty, a hollow dome ofpurple, with here and there on the floor a bright brushing of wings--avillage; then, overhead, the luminous star-spider began to run. 

'Ah, well!' thought Siegmund--he was tired--'if one bee dies in a swarm, what is it, so long as the hive is all right? Apart from the gold light, and the hum and the colour of day, what was I? Nothing! Apart from theserushings out of the hive, along with swarm, into the dark meadows ofnight, gathering God knows what, I was a pebble. Well, the day willswarm in golden again, with colour on the wings of every bee, andhumming in each activity. The gold and the colour and sweet smell andthe sound of life, they exist, even if there is no bee; it only happenswe see the iridescence on the wings of a bee. It exists whether or not, bee or no bee. Since the iridescence and the humming of life _are_always, and since it was they who made me, then I am not lost. At least, I do not care. If the spark goes out, the essence of the fire is therein the darkness. What does it matter? Besides, I _have_ burned bright; Ihave laid up a fine cell of honey somewhere--I wonder where? We cannever point to it; but it _is_ so--what does it matter, then!'

They had entered the north downs, and were running through Dorkingtowards Leatherhead. Box Hill stood dark in the dusky sweetness of thenight. Helena remembered that here she and Siegmund had come for theirfirst walk together. She would like to come again. Presently she saw thequick stilettos of stars on the small, baffled river; they ran betweenhigh embankments. Siegmund recollected that these were covered withroses of Sharon--the large golden St John's wort of finest silk. Helooked, and could just distinguish the full-blown, delicate flowers, ignored by the stars. At last he had something to say to Helena:

'Do you remember, ' he asked, 'the roses of Sharon all along here?'

'I do, ' replied Helena, glad he spoke so brightly. 'Weren't theypretty?'

After a few moments of watching the bank, she said:

'Do you know, I have never gathered one? I think I should like to; Ishould like to feel them, and they should have an orangy smell. '

He smiled, without answering. 

She glanced up at him, smiling brightly. 

'But shall we come down here in the morning, and find some?' she asked. She put the question timidly. 'Would you care to?' she added. 

Siegmund darkened and frowned. Here was the pain revived again. 

'No, ' he said gently; 'I think we had better not. ' Almost for the firsttime he did not make apologetic explanation. 

Helena turned to the window, and remained, looking out at the spinningof the lights of the towns without speaking, until they were nearSutton. Then she rose and pinned on her hat, gathering her gloves andher basket. She was, in spite of herself, slightly angry. Being quiteready to leave the train, she sat down to wait for the station. Siegmundwas aware that she was displeased, and again, for the first time, hesaid to himself, 'Ah, well, it must be so. '

She looked at him. He was sad, therefore she softened instantly. 

'At least, ' she said doubtfully, 'I shall see you at the station. '

'At Waterloo?' he asked. 

'No, at Wimbledon, ' she replied, in her metallic tone. 

'But--' he began. 

'It will be the best way for us, ' she interrupted, in the calm tone ofconviction. 'Much better than crossing London from Victoria toWaterloo. '

'Very well, ' he replied. 

He looked up a train for her in his little time-table. 

'You will get in Wimbledon 10. 5--leave 10. 40--leave Waterloo 11. 30, ' hesaid. 

'Very good, ' she answered. 

The brakes were grinding. They waited in a burning suspense for thetrain to stop. 

'If only she will soon go!' thought Siegmund. It was an intolerableminute. She rose; everything was a red blur. She stood before him, pressing his hand; then he rose to give her the bag. As he leaned uponthe window-frame and she stood below on the platform, looking up at him, he could scarcely breathe. 'How long will it be?' he said to himself, looking at the open carriage doors. He hated intensely the lady whocould not get a porter to remove her luggage; he could have killed her;he could have killed the dilatory guard. At last the doors slammed andthe whistle went. The train started imperceptibly into motion. 

'Now I lose her, ' said Siegmund. 

She looked up at him; her face was white and dismal. 

'Good-bye, then!' she said, and she turned away. 

Siegmund went back to his seat. He was relieved, but he trembled withsickness. We are all glad when intense moments are done with; but whydid she fling round in that manner, stopping the keen note short; whatwould she do?

_Chapter 22_

Siegmund went up to Victoria. He was in no hurry to get down toWimbledon. London was warm and exhausted after the hot day, but thispeculiar lukewarmness was not unpleasant to him. He chose to walk fromVictoria to Waterloo. 

The streets were like polished gun-metal glistened over with gold. Thetaxi-cabs, the wild cats of the town, swept over the gleaming floorswiftly, soon lessening in the distance, as if scornful of the otherclumsy-footed traffic. He heard the merry click-clock of the swinginghansoms, then the excited whirring of the motor-buses as they chargedfull-tilt heavily down the road, their hearts, as it seemed, beatingwith trepidation; they drew up with a sigh of relief by the kerb, andstood there panting--great, nervous, clumsy things. Siegmund was alwaysamused by the headlong, floundering career of the buses. He was pleasedwith this scampering of the traffic; anything for distraction. He wasglad Helena was not with him, for the streets would have irritated herwith their coarse noise. She would stand for a long time to watch therabbits pop and hobble along on the common at night; but the tearingalong of the taxis and the charge of a great motor-bus was painful toher. 'Discords, ' she said, 'after the trees and sea. ' She liked theglistening of the streets; it seemed a fine alloy of gold laid down forpavement, such pavement as drew near to the pure gold streets of Heaven;but this noise could not be endured near any wonderland. 

Siegmund did not mind it; it drummed out his own thoughts. He watchedthe gleaming magic of the road, raced over with shadows, project itselffar before him into the night. He watched the people. Soldiers, beltedwith scarlet, went jauntily on in front. There was a peculiar charm intheir movement. There was a soft vividness of life in their carriage; itreminded Siegmund of the soft swaying and lapping of a poisedcandle-flame. The women went blithely alongside. Occasionally, inpassing, one glanced at him; then, in spite of himself, he smiled; heknew not why. The women glanced at him with approval, for he was ruddy;besides, he had that carelessness and abstraction of despair. The eyesof the women said, 'You are comely, you are lovable, ' andSiegmund smiled. 

When the street opened, at Westminster, he noticed the city sky, alovely deep purple, and the lamps in the square steaming out a vapour ofgrey-gold light. 

'It is a wonderful night, ' he said to himself. 'There are not two suchin a year. '

He went forward to the Embankment, with a feeling of elation in hisheart. This purple and gold-grey world, with the fluttering flame-warmthof soldiers and the quick brightness of women, like lights that clipsharply in a draught, was a revelation to him. 

As he leaned upon the Embankment parapet the wonder did not fade, butrather increased. The trams, one after another, floated loftily over thebridge. They went like great burning bees in an endless file into ahive, past those which were drifting dreamily out, while below, on theblack, distorted water, golden serpents flashed and twisted to and fro. 

'Ah!' said Siegmund to himself; 'it is far too wonderful for me. Here, as well as by the sea, the night is gorgeous and uncouth. Whateverhappens, the world is wonderful. '

So he went on amid all the vast miracle of movement in the city night, the swirling of water to the sea, the gradual sweep of the stars, thefloating of many lofty, luminous cars through the bridged darkness, likean army of angels filing past on one of God's campaigns, the purringhaste of the taxis, the slightly dancing shadows of people. Siegmundwent on slowly, like a slow bullet winging into the heart of life. Hedid not lose this sense of wonder, not in the train, nor as he walkedhome in the moonless dark. 

When he closed the door behind him and hung up his hat he frowned. Hedid not think definitely of anything, but his frown meant to him: 'Nowfor the beginning of Hell!'

He went towards the dining-room, where the light was, and the uneasymurmur. The clock, with its deprecating, suave chime, was striking ten, Siegmund opened the door of the room. Beatrice was sewing, and did notraise her head. Frank, a tall, thin lad of eighteen, was bent over abook. He did not look up. Vera had her fingers thrust in among her hair, and continued to read the magazine that lay on the table before her. Siegmund looked at them all. They gave no sign to show they were awareof his entry; there was only that unnatural tenseness of people whocover their agitation. He glanced round to see where he should go. Hiswicker arm-chair remained by the fireplace; his slippers were standingunder the sideboard, as he had left them. Siegmund sat down in thecreaking chair; he began to feel sick and tired. 

'I suppose the children are in bed, ' he said. 

His wife sewed on as if she had not heard him; his daughter noisilyturned over a leaf and continued to read, as if she were pleasantlyinterested and had known no interruption. Siegmund waited, with hisslipper dangling from his hand, looking from one to another. 

'They've been gone two hours, ' said Frank at last, still without raisinghis eyes from his book. His tone was contemptuous, his voice wasjarring, not yet having developed a man's fullness. 

Siegmund put on his slipper, and began to unlace the other boot. Theslurring of the lace through the holes and the snacking of the tagseemed unnecessarily loud. It annoyed his wife. She took a breath tospeak, then refrained, feeling suddenly her daughter's scornfulrestraint upon her. Siegmund rested his arms upon his knees, and satleaning forward, looking into the barren fireplace, which was litteredwith paper, and orange-peel, and a banana-skin. 

'Do you want any supper?' asked Beatrice, and the sudden harshness ofher voice startled him into looking at her. 

She had her face averted, refusing to see him. Siegmund's heart wentdown with weariness and despair at the sight of her. 

'Aren't _you_ having any?' he asked. 

The table was not laid. Beatrice's work-basket, a little wickerfruit-skep, overflowed scissors, and pins, and scraps of holland, andreels of cotton on the green serge cloth. Vera leaned both her elbows onthe table. 

Instead of replying to him, Beatrice went to the sideboard. She took outa table-cloth, pushing her sewing litter aside, and spread the clothover one end of the table. Vera gave her magazine a little knockwith her hand. 

'Have you read this tale of a French convent school in here, Mother?'she asked. 

'In where?'

In this month's _Nash's_. '

'No, ' replied Beatrice. 'What time have I for reading, much less foranything else?'

'You should think more of yourself, and a little less of other people, then, ' said Vera, with a sneer at the 'other people'. She rose. 'Let medo this. You sit down; you are tired, Mother, ' she said. 

Her mother, without replying, went out to the kitchen. Vera followedher. Frank, left alone with his father, moved uneasily, and bent histhin shoulders lower over his book. Siegmund remained with his arms onhis knees, looking into the grate. From the kitchen came the chinking ofcrockery, and soon the smell of coffee. All the time Vera was heardchatting with affected brightness to her mother, addressing her in fondtones, using all her wits to recall bright little incidents to retail toher. Beatrice answered rarely, and then with utmost brevity. 

Presently Vera came in with the tray. She put down a cup of coffee, aplate with boiled ham, pink and thin, such as is bought from a grocer, and some bread-and-butter. Then she sat down, noisily turning over theleaves of her magazine. Frank glanced at the table; it was laid solelyfor his father. He looked at the bread and the meat, but restrainedhimself, and went on reading, or pretended to do so. Beatrice came inwith the small cruet; it was conspicuously bright. 

Everything was correct: knife and fork, spoon, cruet, all perfectlyclean, the crockery fine, the bread and butter thin--in fact, it wasjust as it would have been for a perfect stranger. This scrupulousneatness, in a household so slovenly and easy-going, where it was anestablished tradition that something should be forgotten or wrong, impressed Siegmund. Beatrice put the serving knife and fork by thelittle dish of ham, saw that all was proper, then went and sat down. Herface showed no emotion; it was calm and proud. She began to sew. 

'What do you say, Mother?' said Vera, as if resuming a conversation. 'Shall it be Hampton Court or Richmond on Sunday?'

'I say, as I said before, ' replied Beatrice: 'I cannot afford to goout. '

'But you must begin, my dear, and Sunday shall see the beginning. _Dîtesdonc_!'

'There are other things to think of, ' said Beatrice. 

'Now, _maman, nous avons changé tout cela_! We are going out--a jollylittle razzle!' Vera, who was rather handsome, lifted up her face andsmiled at her mother gaily. 

'I am afraid there will be no _razzle_'--Beatrice accented the word, smiling slightly--'for me. You are slangy, Vera. '

'_Un doux argot, ma mère_. You look tired. '

Beatrice glanced at the clock. 

'I will go to bed when I have cleared the table, ' she said. 

Siegmund winced. He was still sitting with his head bent down, lookingin the grate. Vera went on to say something more. Presently Frank lookedup at the table, and remarked in his grating voice:

'There's your supper, Father. '

The women stopped and looked round at this. Siegmund bent his headlower. Vera resumed her talk. It died out, and there was silence. 

Siegmund was hungry. 

'Oh, good Lord, good Lord! bread of humiliation tonight!' he said tohimself before he could muster courage to rise and go to the table. Heseemed to be shrinking inwards. The women glanced swiftly at him andaway from him as his chair creaked and he got up. Frank was watchingfrom under his eyebrows. 

Siegmund went through the ordeal of eating and drinking in presence ofhis family. If he had not been hungry, he could not have done it, despite the fact that he was content to receive humiliation this night. He swallowed the coffee with effort. When he had finished he satirresolute for some time; then he arose and went to the door. 

'Good night!' he said. 

Nobody made any reply. Frank merely stirred in his chair. Siegmund shutthe door and went. 

There was absolute silence in the room till they heard him turn on thetap in the bathroom; then Beatrice began to breathe spasmodically, catching her breath as if she would sob. But she restrained herself. Thefaces of the two children set hard with hate. 

'He is not worth the flicking of your little finger, Mother, ' said Vera. 

Beatrice moved about with pitiful, groping hands, collecting her sewingand her cottons. 

'At any rate, he's come back red enough, ' said Frank, in his gratingtone of contempt. 'He's like boiled salmon. '

Beatrice did not answer anything. Frank rose, and stood with his back tothe grate, in his father's characteristic attitude. 

'He _would_ come slinking back in a funk!' he said, with a young man'ssneer. 

Stretching forward, he put a piece of ham between two pieces of bread, and began to eat the sandwich in large bites. Vera came to the table atthis, and began to make herself a more dainty sandwich. Frank watchedher with jealous eyes. 

'There is a little more ham, if you'd like it, ' said Beatrice to him. 'Ikept you some. '

'All right, Ma, ' he replied. Fetch it in. '

Beatrice went out to the kitchen. 

'And bring the bread and butter, too, will you?' called Vera after her. 

'The damned coward! Ain't he a rotten funker?' said Frank, _sotto voce_, while his mother was out of the room. 

Vera did not reply, but she seemed tacitly to agree. 

They petted their mother, while she waited on them. At length Frankyawned. He fidgeted a moment or two, then he went over to his mother, and, putting his hand on her arm--the feel of his mother's round armunder the black silk sleeve made his tears rise--he said, more gratinglythan ever:

'Ne'er mind, Ma; we'll be all right to you. ' Then he bent and kissedher. 'Good night, Mother, ' he said awkwardly, and he went out ofthe room. 

Beatrice was crying. 

_Chapter 23_

'I shall never re-establish myself, ' said Siegmund as he closed behindhim the dining-room door and went upstairs in the dark. 'I am a familycriminal. Beatrice might come round, but the children's insolentjudgement is too much. And I am like a dog that creeps round the housefrom which it escaped with joy. I have nowhere else to go. Why did Icome back? But I am sleepy. I will not bother tonight. '

He went into the bathroom and washed himself. Everything he did gave hima grateful sense of pleasure, notwithstanding the misery of hisposition. He dipped his arms deeper into the cold water, that he mightfeel the delight of it a little farther. His neck he swilled time aftertime, and it seemed to him he laughed with pleasure as the water caughthim and fell away. The towel reminded him how sore were his forehead andhis neck, blistered both to a state of rawness by the sun. He touchedthem very cautiously to dry them, wincing, and smiling at his ownchildish touch-and-shrink. 

Though his bedroom was very dark, he did not light the gas. Instead, hestepped out into the small balcony. His shirt was open at the neck andwrists. He pulled it farther apart, baring his chest to the deliciouslysoft night. He stood looking out at the darkness for some time. Thenight was as yet moonless, but luminous with a certain atmosphere oflight. The stars were small. Near at hand, large shapes of trees roseup. Farther, lamps like little mushroom groups shone amid an undergrowthof darkness. There was a vague hoarse noise filling the sky, like thewhispering in a shell, and this breathing of the summer nightoccasionally swelled into a restless sigh as a train roared acrossthe distance. 

'What a big night!' thought Siegmund. 'The night gathers everything intoa oneness. I wonder what is in it. '

He leaned forward over the balcony, trying to catch something out of thenight. He felt his soul like tendrils stretched out anxiously to grasp ahold. What could he hold to in this great, hoarse breathing night? Astar fell. It seemed to burst into sight just across his eyes with ayellow flash. He looked up, unable to make up his mind whether he hadseen it or not. There was no gap in the sky. 

'It is a good sign--a shooting star, ' he said to himself. 'It is a goodsign for me. I know I am right. That was my sign. '

Having assured himself, he stepped indoors, unpacked his bag, and wassoon in bed. 

'This is a good bed, ' he said. 'And the sheets are very fresh. '

He lay for a little while with his head bending forwards, looking fromhis pillow out at the stars, then he went to sleep. 

At half past six in the morning he suddenly opened his eyes. 

'What is it?' he asked, and almost without interruption answered: 'Well, I've got to go through it. '

His sleep had shaped him perfect premonition, which, like a dream, heforgot when he awoke. Only this naïve question and answer betrayed whathad taken place in his sleep. Immediately he awoke this subordinateknowledge vanished. 

Another fine day was striding in triumphant. The first thing Siegmunddid was to salute the morning, because of its brightness. The secondthing was to call to mind the aspect of that bay in the Isle of Wight. 'What would it just be like now?' said he to himself. He had to give hisheart some justification for the peculiar pain left in it from his sleepactivity, so he began poignantly to long for the place which had beenhis during the last mornings. He pictured the garden with roses andnasturtiums; he remembered the sunny way down the shore, and all theexpanse of sea hung softly between the tall white cliffs. 

'It is impossible it is gone!' he cried to himself. 'It can't be gone. Ilooked forward to it as if it never would come. It can't be gone now. Helena is not lost to me, surely. ' Then he began a long pining for thedeparted beauty of his life. He turned the jewel of memory, and facet byfacet it wounded him with its brilliant loveliness. This pain, though itwas keen, was half pleasure. 

Presently he heard his wife stirring. She opened the door of the roomnext to his, and he heard her:

'Frank, it's a quarter to eight. You _will_ be late. '

'All right, Mother. Why didn't you call me sooner?' grumbled the lad. 

'I didn't wake myself. I didn't go to sleep till morning, and then Islept. '

She went downstairs. Siegmund listened for his son to get out of bed. The minutes passed. 

'The young donkey, why doesn't he get out?' said Siegmund angrily tohimself. He turned over, pressing himself upon the bed in anger andhumiliation, because now he had no authority to call to his son and keephim to his duty. Siegmund waited, writhing with anger, shame, andanxiety. When the suave, velvety 'Pan-n-n! pan-n-n-n!' of the clock washeard striking, Frank stepped with a thud on to the floor. He could beheard dressing in clumsy haste. Beatrice called from the bottom ofthe stairs:

'Do you want any hot water?'

'You know there isn't time for me to shave now, ' answered her son, lifting his voice to a kind of broken falsetto. 

The scent of the cooking of bacon filled the house. Siegmund heard hissecond daughter, Marjory, aged nine, talking to Vera, who occupied thesame room with her. The child was evidently questioning, and the eldergirl answered briefly. There was a lull in the household noises, brokensuddenly by Marjory, shouting from the top of the stairs:

'Mam!' She wailed. 'Mam!' Still Beatrice did not hear her. 'Mam! Mamma!'Beatrice was in the scullery. 'Mamma-a!' The child was gettingimpatient. She lifted her voice and shouted: 'Mam? Mamma!' Still noanswer. 'Mam-mee-e!' she squealed. 

Siegmund could hardly contain himself. 

'Why don't you go down and ask?' Vera called crossly from the bedroom. 

And at the same moment Beatrice answered, also crossly: 'What do youwant?'

'Where's my stockings?' cried the child at the top of her voice. 

'Why do you ask me? Are they down here?' replied her mother. 'What areyou shouting for?'

The child plodded downstairs. Directly she returned, and as she passedinto Vera's room, she grumbled: 'And now they're not mended. '

Siegmund heard a sound that made his heart beat. It was the crackling ofthe sides of the crib, as Gwen, his little girl of five, climbed out. She was silent for a space. He imagined her sitting on the white rug andpulling on her stockings. Then there came the quick little thud of herfeet as she went downstairs. 

'Mam, ' Siegmund heard her say as she went down the hall, 'has dad come?'

The answer and the child's further talk were lost in the distance of thekitchen. The small, anxious question, and the quick thudding of Gwen'sfeet, made Siegmund lie still with torture. He wanted to hear no more. He lay shrinking within himself. It seemed that his soul was sensitiveto madness. He felt that he could not, come what might, get up andmeet them all. 

The front door banged, and he heard Frank's hasty call: 'Good-bye!'Evidently the lad was in an ill-humour. Siegmund listened for the soundof the train; it seemed an age; the boy would catch it. Then the waterfrom the wash-hand bowl in the bathroom ran loudly out. That, hesuggested, was Vera, who was evidently not going up to town. At thethought of this, Siegmund almost hated her. He listened for her to godownstairs. It was nine o'clock. 

The footsteps of Beatrice came upstairs. She put something down in thebathroom--his hot water. Siegmund listened intently for her to come tohis door. Would she speak? She approached hurriedly, knocked, andwaited. Siegmund, startled, for the moment, could not answer. Sheknocked loudly. 

'All right, ' said he. 

Then she went downstairs. 

He lay probing and torturing himself for another half-hour, till Vera'svoice said coldly, beneath his window outside:

'You should clear away, then. We don't want the breakfast things on thetable for a week. '

Siegmund's heart set hard. He rose, with a shut mouth, and went acrossto the bathroom. There he started. The quaint figure of Gwen stood atthe bowl, her back was towards him; she was sponging her face gingerly. Her hair, all blowsed from the pillow, was tied in a stiff littlepigtail, standing out from her slender, childish neck. Her arms werebare to the shoulder. She wore a bodiced petticoat of pink flannelette, which hardly reached her knees. Siegmund felt slightly amused to see herstout little calves planted so firmly close together. She carefullysponged her cheeks, her pursed-up mouth, and her neck, soaping her hair, but not her ears. Then, very deliberately, she squeezed out the spongeand proceeded to wipe away the soap. 

For some reason or other she glanced round. Her startled eyes met his. She, too, had beautiful dark blue eyes. She stood, with the sponge ather neck, looking full at him. Siegmund felt himself shrinking. Thechild's look was steady, calm, inscrutable. 

'Hello!' said her father. 'Are you here!'

The child, without altering her expression in the slightest, turned herback on him, and continued wiping her neck. She dropped the sponge inthe water and took the towel from off the side of the bath. Then sheturned to look again at Siegmund, who stood in his pyjamas before her, his mouth shut hard, but his eyes shrinking and tender. She seemed to betrying to discover something in him. 

'Have you washed your ears?' he said gaily. 

She paid no heed to this, except that he noticed her face now wore aslight constrained smile as she looked at him. She was shy. Still shecontinued to regard him curiously. 

'There is some chocolate on my dressing-table, ' he said. 

'Where have you been to?' she asked suddenly. 

'To the seaside, ' he answered, smiling. 

'To Brighton?' she asked. Her tone was still condemning. 

'Much farther than that, ' he replied. 

'To Worthing?' she asked. 

'Farther--in a steamer, ' he replied. 

'But who did you go with?' asked the child. 

'Why, I went all by myself, ' he answered. 

'Twuly?' she asked. 

'Weally and twuly, ' he answered, laughing. 

'Couldn't you take me?' she asked. 

'I will next time, ' he replied. 

The child still looked at him, unsatisfied. 

'But what did you go for?' she asked, goading him suspiciously. 

'To see the sea and the ships and the fighting ships with cannons--'

'You _might_ have taken me, ' said the child reproachfully. 

'Yes, I ought to have done, oughtn't I?' he said, as if regretful. 

Gwen still looked full at him. 

'You _are_ red, ' she said. 

He glanced quickly in the glass, and replied:

'That is the sun. Hasn't it been hot?'

'Mm! It made my nose all peel. Vera said she would scrape me like a newpotato. ' The child laughed and turned shyly away. 

'Come here, ' said Siegmund. 'I believe you've got a tooth out, haven'tyou?'

He was very cautious and gentle. The child drew back. He hesitated, andshe drew away from him, unwilling. 

'Come and let me look, ' he repeated. 

She drew farther away, and the same constrained smile appeared on herface, shy, suspicious, condemning. 

'Aren't you going to get your chocolate?' he asked, as the childhesitated in the doorway. 

She glanced into his room, and answered:

'I've got to go to mam and have my hair done. '

Her awkwardness and her lack of compliance insulted him. She wentdownstairs without going into his room. 

Siegmund, rebuffed by the only one in the house from whom he might haveexpected friendship, proceeded slowly to shave, feeling sick at heart. He was a long time over his toilet. When he stripped himself for thebath, it seemed to him he could smell the sea. He bent his head andlicked his shoulder. It tasted decidedly salt. 

'A pity to wash it off, ' he said. 

As he got up dripping from the cold bath, he felt for the momentexhilarated. He rubbed himself smooth. Glancing down at himself, hethought: 'I look young. I look as young as twenty-six. '

He turned to the mirror. There he saw himself a mature, complete man offorty, with grave years of experience on his countenance. 

'I used to think that, when I was forty, ' he said to himself, 'I shouldfind everything straight as the nose on my face, walking through myaffairs as easily as you like. Now I am no more sure of myself, have nomore confidence than a boy of twenty. What can I do? It seems to me aman needs a mother all his life. I don't feel much like a lord ofcreation. '

Having arrived at this cynicism, Siegmund prepared to go downstairs. Hissensitiveness had passed off; his nerves had become callous. When he wasdressed he went down to the kitchen without hesitation. He wasindifferent to his wife and children. No one spoke to him as he sat tothe table. That was as he liked it; he wished for nothing to touch him. He ate his breakfast alone, while his wife bustled about upstairs andVera bustled about in the dining-room. Then he retired to the solitudeof the drawing-room. As a reaction against his poetic activity, he feltas if he were gradually becoming more stupid and blind. He remarkednothing, not even the extravagant bowl of grasses placed where he wouldnot have allowed it--on his piano; nor his fiddle, laid cruelly on thecold, polished floor near the window. He merely sat down in anarm-chair, and felt sick. 

All his unnatural excitement, all the poetic stimulation of the past fewdays, had vanished. He felt flaccid, while his life struggled slowlythrough him. After an intoxication of passion and love, and beauty, andof sunshine, he was prostrate. Like a plant that blossoms gorgeously andmadly, he had wasted the tissue of his strength, so that now his lifestruggled in a clogged and broken channel. 

Siegmund sat with his head between his hands, leaning upon the table. Hewould have been stupidly quiescent in his feeling of loathing andsickness had not an intense irritability in all his nerves tormented himinto consciousness. 

'I suppose this is the result of the sun--a sort of sunstroke, ' he said, realizing an intolerable stiffness of his brain, a stunned conditionin his head. 

'This is hideous!' he said. His arms were quivering with intenseirritation. He exerted all his will to stop them, and then the hotirritability commenced in his belly. Siegmund fidgeted in his chairwithout changing his position. He had not the energy to get up and moveabout. He fidgeted like an insect pinned down. 

The door opened. He felt violently startled; yet there was no movementperceptible. Vera entered, ostensibly for an autograph-album into whichshe was going to copy a drawing from the _London Opinion_, really to seewhat her father was doing. He did not move a muscle. He only longedintensely for his daughter to go out of the room, so that he could letgo. Vera went out of the drawing-room humming to herself. Apparently shehad not even glanced at her father. In reality, she had observedhim closely. 

'He is sitting with his head in his hands, ' she said to her mother. 

Beatrice replied: 'I'm glad he's nothing else to do. '

'I should think he's pitying himself, ' said Vera. 

'He's a good one at it, ' answered Beatrice. 

Gwen came forward and took hold of her mother's skirt, looking upanxiously. 

'What is he doing, Mam?' she asked. 

'Nothing, ' replied her mother--'nothing; only sitting in thedrawing-room. '

'But what has he _been_ doing?' persisted the anxious child. 

'Nothing--nothing that I can tell _you_. He's only spoilt all ourlives. '

The little girl stood regarding her mother In the greatest distress andperplexity. 

'But what will he do, Mam?' she asked. 

'Nothing. Don't bother. Run and play with Marjory now. Do you want anice plum?'

She took a yellow plum from the table. Gwen accepted it without a word. She was too much perplexed. 

'What do you say?' asked her mother. 

'Thank you, ' replied the child, turning away. 

Siegmund sighed with relief when he was again left alone. He twisted inhis chair, and sighed again, trying to drive out the intolerable clawingirritability from his belly. 

'Ah, this is horrible!' he said. 

He stiffened his muscles to quieten them. 

'I've never been like this before. What is the matter?' he askedhimself. 

But the question died out immediately. It seemed useless and sickeningto try and answer it. He began to cast about for an alleviation. If hecould only do something, or have something he wanted, it wouldbe better. 

'What do I want?' he asked himself, and he anxiously strove to find thisout. 

Everything he suggested to himself made him sicken with weariness ordistaste: the seaside, a foreign land, a fresh life that he had oftendreamed of, farming in Canada. 

'I should be just the same there, ' he answered himself. 'Just the samesickening feeling there that I want nothing. '

'Helena!' he suggested to himself, trembling. 

But he only felt a deeper horror. The thought of her made him shrinkconvulsively. 

'I can't endure this, ' he said. If this is the case, I had better bedead. To have no want, no desire--that is death, to begin with. '

He rested awhile after this. The idea of death alone seemedentertaining. Then, 'Is there really nothing I could turn to?' heasked himself. 

To him, in that state of soul, it seemed there was not. 

'Helena!' he suggested again, appealingly testing himself. 'Ah, no!' hecried, drawing sharply back, as from an approaching touch upon araw place. 

He groaned slightly as he breathed, with a horrid weight of nausea. There was a fumbling upon the door-knob. Siegmund did not start. Hemerely pulled himself together. Gwen pushed open the door, and stoodholding on to the door-knob looking at him. 

'Dad, Mam says dinner's ready, ' she announced. 

Siegmund did not reply. The child waited, at a loss for some moments, before she repeated, in a hesitating tone:

'Dinner's ready. '

'All right, ' said Siegmund. 'Go away. '

The little girl returned to the kitchen with tears in her eyes, verycrestfallen. 

'What did he say?' asked Beatrice. 

'He shouted at me, ' replied the little one, breaking into tears. 

Beatrice flushed. Tears came into her own eyes. She took the child inher arms and pressed her to her, kissing her forehead. 

'Did he?' she said very tenderly. 'Never mind, then, dearie--nevermind. '

The tears in her mother's voice made the child sob bitterly. Vera andMarjory sat silent at table. The steak and mashed potatoes steamed andgrew cold. 

_Chapter 24_

When Helena arrived home on the Thursday evening she found everythingrepulsive. All the odours of the sordid street through which she mustpass hung about the pavement, having crept out in the heat. The housewas bare and narrow. She remembered children sometimes to have broughther moths shut up in matchboxes. As she knocked at the door she feltlike a numbed moth which a boy is pushing off its leaf-rest intohis box. 

The door was opened by her mother. She was a woman whose sunken mouth, ruddy cheeks, and quick brown eyes gave her the appearance of a birdwhich walks about pecking suddenly here and there. As Helena reluctantlyentered the mother drew herself up, and immediately relaxed, seeming topeck forwards as she said:

'Well?'

'Well, here we are!' replied the daughter in a matter-of-fact tone. 

Her mother was inclined to be affectionate, therefore she becameproportionately cold. 

'So I see, ' exclaimed Mrs Verden, tossing her head in a peculiar jocularmanner. 'And what sort of a time have you had?'

'Oh, very good, ' replied Helena, still more coolly. 

'H'm!'

Mrs Verden looked keenly at her daughter. She recognized the peculiarsulky, childish look she knew so well, therefore, making an effort, sheforbore to question. 

'You look well, ' she said. 

Helena smiled ironically. 

'And are you ready for your supper?' she asked, in the playful, affectionate manner she had assumed. 

'If the supper is ready I will have it, ' replied her daughter. 

'Well, it's not ready. ' The mother shut tight her sunken mouth, andregarded her daughter with playful challenge. 'Because, ' she continued, 'I didn't known when you were coming. ' She gave a jerk with her arm, like an orator who utters the incontrovertible. 'But, ' she added, aftera tedious dramatic pause, 'I can soon have it ready. What willyou have?'

'The full list of your capacious larder, ' replied Helena. 

Mrs Verden looked at her again, and hesitated. 

'Will you have cocoa or lemonade?' she asked, coming to the pointcurtly. 

'Lemonade, ' said Helena. 

Presently Mr Verden entered--a small, white-bearded man with a gentlevoice. 

'Oh, so you are back, Nellie!' he said, in his quiet, reserved manner. 

'As you see, Pater, ' she answered. 

'H'm!' he murmured, and he moved about at his accounts. 

Neither of her parents dared to question Helena. They moved about her ontiptoe, stealthily. Yet neither subserved her. Her father's quiet 'H'm!'her mother's curt question, made her draw inwards like a snail which cannever retreat far enough from condemning eyes. She made a carelesspretence of eating. She was like a child which has done wrong, and willnot be punished, but will be left with the humiliating smear ofoffence upon it. 

There was a quick, light palpitating of the knocker. Mrs Verden went tothe door. 

'Has she come?'

And there were hasty steps along the passage. Louisa entered. She flungherself upon Helena and kissed her. 

'How long have you been in?' she asked, in a voice trembling withaffection. 

'Ten minutes, ' replied Helena. 

'Why didn't you send me the time of the train, so that I could come andmeet you?' Louisa reproached her. 

'Why?' drawled Helena. 

Louisa looked at her friend without speaking. She was deeply hurt bythis sarcasm. 

As soon as possible Helena went upstairs. Louisa stayed with her thatnight. On the next day they were going to Cornwall together for theirusual midsummer holiday. They were to be accompanied by a third girl--aminor friend of Louisa, a slight acquaintance of Helena. 

During the night neither of the two friends slept much. Helena madeconfidences to Louisa, who brooded on these, on the romance and tragedywhich enveloped the girl she loved so dearly. Meanwhile, Helena'sthoughts went round and round, tethered amid the five days by the sea, pulling forwards as far as the morrow's meeting with Siegmund, butreaching no further. 

Friday was an intolerable day of silence, broken by little tenderadvances and playful, affectionate sallies on the part of the mother, all of which were rapidly repulsed. The father said nothing, and avoidedhis daughter with his eyes. In his humble reserve there was a dignitywhich made his disapproval far more difficult to bear than the repeatedflagrant questionings of the mother's eyes. But the day wore on. Helenapretended to read, and sat thinking. She played her violin a little, mechanically. She went out into the town, and wandered about. 

At last the night fell. 

'Well, ' said Helena to her mother, 'I suppose I'd better pack. '

'Haven't you done it?' cried Mrs Verden, exaggerating her surprise. 'You'll never have it done. I'd better help you. What times does thetrain go?'

Helena smiled. 

'Ten minutes to ten. '

Her mother glanced at the clock. It was only half-past eight. There wasample time for everything. 

'Nevertheless, you'd better look sharp, ' Mrs Verden said. 

Helena turned away, weary of this exaggeration. 

'I'll come with you to the station, ' suggested Mrs Verden. 'I'll see thelast of you. We shan't see much of you just now. '

Helena turned round in surprise. 

'Oh, I wouldn't bother, ' she said, fearing to make her disapproval tooevident. 

'Yes--I will--I'll see you off. '

Mrs Verden's animation and indulgence were remarkable. Usually she wascurt and undemonstrative. On occasions like these, however, when she wasreminded of the ideal relations between mother and daughter, she playedthe part of the affectionate parent, much to the general distress. 

Helena lit a candle and went to her bedroom. She quickly packed herdress-basket. As she stood before the mirror to put on her hat, hereyes, gazing heavily, met her heavy eyes in the mirror. She glanced awayswiftly as if she had been burned. 

'How stupid I look!' she said to herself. 'And Siegmund, how is he, Iwonder?'

She wondered how Siegmund had passed the day, what had happened to him, how he felt, how he looked. She thought of him protectively. 

Having strapped her basket, she carried it downstairs. Her mother wasready, with a white lace scarf round her neck. After a short time Louisacame in. She dropped her basket in the passage, and then sank intoa chair. 

'I don't want to go, Nell, ' she said, after a few moments of silence. 

'Why, how is that?' asked Helena, not surprised, but condescending, asto a child. 

'Oh, I don't know; I'm tired, ' said the other petulantly. 

'Of course you are. What do you expect, after a day like this?' saidHelena. 

'And rushing about packing, ' exclaimed Mrs Verden, still in anexaggerated manner, this time scolding playfully. 

'Oh, I don't know. I don't think I want to go, dear, ' repeated Louisadejectedly. 

'Well, it is time we set out, ' replied Helena, rising. 'Will you carrythe basket or the violin, Mater?'

Louisa rose, and with a forlorn expression took up her light luggage. 

The west opposite the door was smouldering with sunset. Darkness is onlysmoke that hangs suffocatingly over the low red heat of the sunken day. Such was Helena's longed-for night. The tramcar was crowded. In onecorner Olive, the third friend, rose excitedly to greet them. Helena satmute, while the car swung through the yellow, stale lights of athird-rate street of shops. She heard Olive remarking on her sunburnedface and arms; she became aware of the renewed inflammation in herblistered arms; she heard her own curious voice answering. Everythingwas in a maze. To the beat of the car, while the yellow blur of theshops passed over her eyes, she repeated: 'Two hundred and fortymiles--two hundred and forty miles. '

_Chapter 25_

Siegmund passed the afternoon in a sort of stupor. At tea-time Beatrice, who had until then kept herself in restraint, gave way to an outburst ofangry hysteria. 

'When does your engagement at the Comedy Theatre commence?' she hadasked him coldly. 

He knew she was wondering about money. 

'Tomorrow--if ever, ' he had answered. 

She was aware that he hated the work. For some reason or other her angerflashed out like sudden lightning at his 'if ever'. 

'What do you think you _can_ do?' she cried. 'For I think you have doneenough. We can't do as we like altogether--indeed, indeed we cannot. Youhave had your fling, haven't you? You have had your fling, and you wantto keep on. But there's more than one person in the world. Rememberthat. But there are your children, let me remind you. Whose are they?You talk about shirking the engagement, but who is going to beresponsible for your children, do you think?'

'I said nothing about shirking the engagement, ' replied Siegmund, verycoldly. 

'No, there was no need to say. I know what it means. You sit theresulking all day. What do you think _I_ do? I have to see to thechildren, I have to work and slave, I go on from day to day. I tell you_I'll_ stop, I tell you _I'll_ do as I like. _I'll_ go as well. No, Iwouldn't be such a coward, you know that. You know _I_ wouldn't leavelittle children--to the workhouse or anything. They're my children; theymightn't be yours. '

'There is no need for this, ' said Siegmund contemptuously. 

The pressure in his temples was excruciating, and he felt loathsomelysick. 

Beatrice's dark eyes flashed with rage. 

'Isn't there!' she cried. 'Oh, isn't there? No, there is need for agreat deal more. I don't know what you think I am. How much farther doyou' think you can go? No, you don't like reminding of us. You sitmoping, sulking, because you have to come back to your own children. Iwonder how much you think I shall stand? What do you think I am, to putup with it? What do you think I am? Am I a servant to eat out ofyour hand?'

'Be quiet!' shouted Siegmund. 'Don't I know what you are? Listen toyourself!'

Beatrice was suddenly silenced. It was the stillness of white-hot wrath. Even Siegmund was glad to hear her voice again. She spoke low andtrembling. 

'You coward--you miserable coward! It is I, is it, who am wrong? It is Iwho am to blame, is it? You miserable thing! I have no doubt you knowwhat I am. '

Siegmund looked up at her as her words died off. She looked back at himwith dark eyes loathing his cowed, wretched animosity. His eyes werebloodshot and furtive, his mouth was drawn back in a half-grin of hateand misery. She was goading him, in his darkness whither he hadwithdrawn himself like a sick dog, to die or recover as his strengthshould prove. She tortured him till his sickness was swallowed by anger, which glared redly at her as he pushed back his chair to rise. Hetrembled too much, however. His chin dropped again on his chest. Beatrice sat down in her place, hearing footsteps. She was shudderingslightly, and her eyes were fixed. 

Vera entered with the two children. All three immediately, as if theyfound themselves confronted by something threatening, stood arrested. Vera tackled the situation. 

'Is the table ready to be cleared yet?' she asked in an unpleasant tone. 

Her father's cup was half emptied. He had come to tea late, after theothers had left the table. Evidently he had not finished, but he made noreply, neither did Beatrice. Vera glanced disgustedly at her father. Gwen sidled up to her mother, and tried to break the tension. 

'Mam, there was a lady had a dog, and it ran into a shop, and it lickeda sheep, Mam, what was hanging up. '

Beatrice sat fixed, and paid not the slightest attention. The childlooked up at her, waited, then continued softly. 

'Mam, there was a lady had a dog--'

'Don't bother!' snapped Vera sharply. 

The child looked, wondering and resentful, at her sister. Vera wastaking the things from the table, snatching them, and thrusting them onthe tray. Gwen's eyes rested a moment or two on the bent head of herfather; then deliberately she turned again to her mother, and repeatedin her softest and most persuasive tones:

'Mam, I saw a dog, and it ran in a butcher's shop and licked a piece ofmeat. Mam, Mam!'

There was no answer. Gwen went forward and put her hand on her mother'sknee. 

'Mam!' she pleaded timidly. 

No response. 

'Mam!' she whispered. 

She was desperate. She stood on tiptoe, and pulled with little hands ather mother's breast. 

'Mam!' she whispered shrilly. 

Her mother, with an effort of self-denial, put off her investment oftragedy, and, laying her arm round the child's shoulders, drew herclose. Gwen was somewhat reassured, but not satisfied. With an earnestface upturned to the impassive countenance of her mother, she began towhisper, sibilant, coaxing, pleading. 

'Mam, there was a lady, she had a dog--'

Vera turned sharply to stop this whispering, which was too much for hernerves, but the mother forestalled her. Taking the child in her arms, she averted her face, put her cheek against the baby cheek, and let thetears run freely. Gwen was too much distressed to cry. The tearsgathered very slowly in her eyes, and fell without her having moved amuscle in her face. Vera remained in the scullery, weeping tears ofrage, and pity, and shame into the towel. The only sound in the room wasthe occasional sharp breathing of Beatrice. Siegmund sat without thetrace of a movement, almost without breathing. His head was ducked low;he dared never lift it, he dared give no sign of his presence. 

Presently Beatrice put down the child, and went to join Vera in thescullery. There came the low sound of women's talking--an angry, ominoussound. Gwen followed her mother. Her little voice could be heardcautiously asking:

'Mam, is dad cross--is he? What did he do?'

'Don't bother!' snapped Vera. 'You _are_ a little nuisance! Here, takethis into the dining-room, and don't drop it. '

The child did not obey. She stood looking from her mother to her sister. The latter pushed a dish into her hand. 

'Go along, ' she said, gently thrusting the child forth. 

Gwen departed. She hesitated in the kitchen. Her father still remainedunmoved. The child wished to go to him, to speak to him, but she wasafraid. She crossed the kitchen slowly, hugging the dish; then she cameslowly back, hesitating. She sidled into the kitchen; she crept roundthe table inch by inch, drawing nearer her father. At about a yard fromthe chair she stopped. He, from under his bent brows, could see hersmall feet in brown slippers, nearly kicked through at the toes, waitingand moving nervously near him. He pulled himself together, as a man doeswho watches the surgeon's lancet suspended over his wound. Would thechild speak to him? Would she touch him with her small hands? He heldhis breath, and, it seemed, held his heart from beating. What he shoulddo he did not know. 

He waited in a daze of suspense. The child shifted from one foot toanother. He could just see the edge of her white-frilled drawers. Hewanted, above all things, to take her in his arms, to have somethingagainst which to hide his face. Yet he was afraid. Often, when all theworld was hostile, he had found her full of love, he had hidden his faceagainst her, she had gone to sleep in his arms, she had been like apiece of apple-blossom in his arms. If she should come to him now--hisheart halted again in suspense--he knew not what he would do. It wouldopen, perhaps, the tumour of his sickness. He was quivering too fastwith suspense to know what he feared, or wanted, or hoped. 

'Gwen!' called Vera, wondering why she did not return. 'Gwen!'

'Yes, ' answered the child, and slowly Siegmund saw her feet lifted, hesitate, move, then turn away. 

She had gone. His excitement sank rapidly, and the sickness returnedstronger, more horrible and wearying than ever. For a moment it was sobad that he was afraid of losing consciousness. He recovered slightly, pulled himself up, and went upstairs. His fists were tightly clenched, his fingers closed over his thumbs, which were pressed bloodless. He laydown on the bed. 

For two hours he lay in a dazed condition resembling sleep. At the endof that time the knowledge that he had to meet Helena was actively atwork--an activity quite apart from his will or his consciousness, jogging and pulling him awake. At eight o'clock he sat up. A crampedpain in his thumbs made him wonder. He looked at them, and mechanicallyshut them again under his fingers into the position they sought aftertwo hours of similar constraint. Siegmund opened his handsagain, smiling. 

'It is said to be the sign of a weak, deceitful character, ' he said tohimself. 

His head was peculiarly numbed; at the back it felt heavy, as ifweighted with lead. He could think only one detached sentence atintervals. Between-whiles there was a blank, grey sleep or swoon. 

'I have got to go and meet Helena at Wimbledon, ' he said to himself, andinstantly he felt a peculiar joy, as if he had laughed somewhere. 'But Imust be getting ready. I can't disappoint her, ' said Siegmund. 

The idea of Helena woke a craving for rest in him. If he should say toher, 'Do not go away from me; come with me somewhere, ' then he might liedown somewhere beside her, and she might put her hands on his head. Ifshe could hold his head in her hands--for she had fine, silken handsthat adjusted themselves with a rare pressure, wrapping his weakness upin life--then his head would gradually grow healed, and he could rest. This was the one thing that remained for his restoration--that sheshould with long, unwearying gentleness put him to rest. He longed forit utterly--for the hands and the restfulness of Helena. 

'But it is no good, ' he said, staring like a drunken man from sleep. 'What time is it?'

It was ten minutes to nine. She would be in Wimbledon by 10. 10. It wastime he should be getting ready. Yet he remained sitting on the bed. 

'I am forgetting again, ' he said. 'But I do not want to go. What is thegood? I have only to tie a mask on for the meeting. It is too much. '

He waited and waited; his head dropped forward in a sort of sleep. Suddenly he started awake. The back of his head hurt severely. 

'Goodness, ' he said, 'it's getting quite dark!'

It was twenty minutes to ten. He went bewildered into the bathroom towash in cold water and bring back his senses. His hands were sore, andhis face blazed with sun inflammation. He made himself neat as usual. Itwas ten minutes to ten. He would be very late. It was practically dark, though these bright days were endless. He wondered whether the childrenwere in bed. It was too late, however, to wonder. 

Siegmund hurried downstairs and took his hat. He was walking down thepath when the door was snatched open behind him, and Vera ranout crying:

'Are you going out? Where are you going?'

Siegmund stood still and looked at her. 

'She is frightened, ' he said to himself, smiling ironically. 

'I am only going a walk. I have to go to Wimbledon. I shall not be verylong. '

'Wimbledon, at this time!' said Vera sharply, full of suspicion. 

'Yes, I am late. I shall be back in an hour. '

He was sorry for her. She knew he gave her an honourable promise. 

'You need not keep us sitting up, ' she said. 

He did not answer, but hurried to the station. 

_Chapter 26_

Helena, Louisa, and Olive climbed the steps to go to the South-Westernplatform. They were laden with dress-baskets, umbrellas, and littlepackages. Olive and Louisa, at least, were in high spirits. Olivestopped before the indicator. 

'The next train for Waterloo, ' she announced, in her contralto voice, 'is 10. 30. It is now 10. 12. '

'We go by the 10. 40; it is a better train, ' said Helena. 

Olive turned to her with a heavy-arch manner. 

'Very well, dear. There is a parting to be got through, I am told. Wesympathize, dear, but we regret it. Starting for a holiday is always aprolonged agony. But I am strong to endure it. '

'You look it. You look as if you could tackle a bull, ' cried Louisa, skittish. 

'My dear Louisa, ' rang out Olive's contralto, 'don't judge me byappearances. You're sure to be taken in. With me it's a case of

 '"Oh, the gladness of her gladness when she's sad, And the sadness of her sadness when she's glad!"'

She looked round to see the effect of this. Helena, expected to saysomething, chimed in sarcastically:

'"They are nothing to her madness--"'

'When she's going for a holiday, dear, ' cried Olive. 

'Oh, go on being mad, ' cried Louisa. 

'What, do you like it? I thought you'd be thanking Heaven that sanitywas given me in large doses. '

'And holidays in small, ' laughed Louisa. 'Good! No, I like your madness, if you call it such. You are always so serious. '

'"It's ill talking of halters in the house of the hanged, " dear, ' boomedOlive. 

She looked from side to side. She felt triumphant. Helena smiled, acknowledging the sarcasm. 

'But, ' said Louisa, smiling anxiously, 'I don't quite see it. What's thepoint?'

'Well, to be explicit, dear, ' replied Olive, 'it is hardly safe toaccuse me of sadness and seriousness in _this_ trio. '

Louisa laughed and shook herself. 

'Come to think of it, it isn't, ' she said. 

Helena sighed, and walked down the platform. Her heart was beatingthickly; she could hardly breathe. The station lamps hung low, so theymade a ceiling of heat and dusty light. She suffocated under them. For amoment she beat with hysteria, feeling, as most of us feel when sick ona hot summer night, as if she must certainly go crazed, smothered underthe grey, woolly blanket of heat. Siegmund was late. It was alreadytwenty-five minutes past ten. 

She went towards the booking-office. At that moment Siegmund came on tothe platform. 

'Here I am!' he said. 'Where is Louisa?'

Helena pointed to the seat without answering. She was looking atSiegmund. He was distracted by the excitement of the moment, so shecould not read him. 

'Olive is there, too, ' she explained. 

Siegmund stood still, straining his eyes to see the two women seatedamidst pale wicker dress-baskets and dark rugs. The stranger made thingsmore complex. 

'Does she--your other friend--does she know?' he asked. 

'She knows nothing, ' replied Helena in a low tone, as she led himforward to be introduced. 

'How do you do?' replied Olive in most mellow contralto. 'Behold thedauntless three, with their traps! You will see us forth on our perils?'

'I will, since I may not do more, ' replied Siegmund, smiling, continuing: 'And how is Sister Louisa?'

'She is very well, thank you. It is _her_ turn now, ' cried Louisa, vindictive, triumphant. 

There was always a faint animosity in her bearing towards Siegmund. Heunderstood, and smiled at her enmity, for the two were reallygood friends. 

'It is your turn now, ' he repeated, smiling, and he turned away. 

He and Helena walked down the platform. 

'How did you find things at home?' he asked her. 

'Oh, as usual, ' she replied indifferently. 'And you?'

'Just the same, ' he answered. He thought for a moment or two, thenadded: 'The children are happier without me. '

'Oh, you mustn't say that kind of thing protested Helena miserably. 'It's not true. '

'It's all right, dear, ' he answered. 'So long as they are happy, it'sall right. ' After a pause he added: 'But I feel pretty bad tonight. '

Helena's hand tightened on his arm. He had reached the end of theplatform. There he stood, looking up the line which ran dark under ahaze of lights. The high red signal-lamps hung aloft in a scarlet swarm;farther off, like spangles shaking downwards from a burst sky-rocket, was a tangle of brilliant red and green signal-lamps settling. A trainwith the warm flare on its thick column of smoke came thundering uponthe lovers. Dazed, they felt the yellow bar of carriage-windows brush invibration across their faces. The ground and the air rocked. ThenSiegmund turned his head to watch the red and the green lights in therear of the train swiftly dwindle on the darkness. Still watching thedistance where the train had vanished, he said:

'Dear, I want you to promise that, whatever happens to me, you will goon. Remember, dear, two wrongs don't make a right. '

Helena swiftly, with a movement of terror, faced him, looking into hiseyes. But he was in the shadow, she could not see him. The flat sound ofhis voice, lacking resonance--the dead, expressionless tone--made herlose her presence of mind. She stared at him blankly. 

'What do you mean? What has happened? Something has happened to you. What has happened at home? What are you going to do?' she said sharply. She palpitated with terror. For the first time she felt powerless. Siegmund was beyond her grasp. She was afraid of him. He had shaken awayher hold over him. 

'There is nothing fresh the matter at home, ' he replied wearily. He wasto be scourged with emotion again. 'I swear it, ' he added. 'And I havenot made up my mind. But I can't think of life without you--and lifemust go on. '

'And I swear, ' she said wrathfully, turning at bay, 'that I won't live aday after you. '

Siegmund dropped his head. The dead spring of his emotion swelled upscalding hot again. Then he said, almost inaudibly: 'Ah, don't speak tome like that, dear. It is late to be angry. When I have seen your trainout tonight there is nothing left. '

Helena looked at him, dumb with dismay, stupid, angry. 

They became aware of the porters shouting loudly that the Waterloo trainwas to leave from another platform. 

'You'd better come, ' said Siegmund, and they hurried down towards Louisaand Olive. 

'We've got to change platforms, ' cried Louisa, running forward andexcitedly announcing the news. 

'Yes, ' replied Helena, pale and impassive. 

Siegmund picked up the luggage. 

'I say, ' cried Olive, rushing to catch Helena and Louisa by the arm, 'look--look--both of you--look at that hat!' A lady in front was wearingon her hat a wild and dishevelled array of peacock feathers. 'It's thesight of a lifetime. I wouldn't have you miss it, ' added Olive in hoarse_sotto voce_. 

'Indeed not!' cried Helena, turning in wild exasperation to look. 'Get agood view of it, Olive. Let's have a good mental impression of it--onethat will last. '

'That's right, dear, ' said Olive, somewhat nonplussed by this outburst. 

Siegmund had escaped with the heaviest two bags. They could see himahead, climbing the steps. Olive readjusted herself from the wildlyanimated to the calmly ironical. 

'After all, dear, ' she said, as they hurried in the tail of the crowd, 'it's not half a bad idea to get a man on the job. '

Louisa laughed aloud at this vulgar conception of Siegmund. 

'Just now, at any rate, ' she rejoined. 

As they reached the platform the train ran in before them. Helenawatched anxiously for an empty carriage. There was not one. 

'Perhaps it is as well, ' she thought. 'We needn't talk. There will bethree-quarters of an hour at Waterloo. If we were alone. Olive wouldmake Siegmund talk. '

She found a carriage with four people, and hastily took possession. Siegmund followed her with the bags. He swung these on the rack, andthen quickly received the rugs, umbrellas, and packages from the othertwo. These he put on the seats or anywhere, while Helena stowed them. She was very busy for a moment or two; the racks were full. Other peopleentered; their luggage was troublesome to bestow. 

When she turned round again she found Louisa and Olive seated, butSiegmund was outside on the platform, and the door was closed. He sawher face move as if she would cry to him. She restrained herself, andimmediately called:

'You are coming? Oh, you are coming to Waterloo?'

He shook his head. 

'I cannot come, ' he said. 

She stood looking blankly at him for some moments, unable to reach thedoor because of the portmanteau thrust through with umbrellas andsticks, which stood on the floor between the knees of the passengers. She was helpless. Siegmund was repeating deliriously in his mind:

'Oh--go--go--go--when will she go?'

He could not bear her piteousness. Her presence made him feel insane. 

'Would you like to come to the window?' a man asked of Helena kindly. 

She smiled suddenly in his direction, without perceiving him. He pulledthe portmanteau under his legs, and Helena edged past. She stood by thedoor, leaning forward with some of her old protective grace, her 'Hawwa'spirit evident. Benign and shielding, she bent forward, looking atSiegmund. But her face was blank with helplessness, with misery ofhelplessness. She stood looking at Siegmund, saying nothing. Hisforehead was scorched and swollen, she noticed sorrowfully, and beneathone eye the skin was blistered. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed in akind of apathy; they filled her with terror. He looked up at her becauseshe wished it. For himself, he could not see her; he could only recoilfrom her. All he wished was to hide himself in the dark, alone. Yet shewanted him, and so far he yielded. But to go to Waterloo he couldnot yield. 

The people in the carriage, made uneasy by this strange farewell, didnot speak. There were a few taut moments of silence. No one seems tohave strength to interrupt these spaces of irresolute anguish. Finally, the guard's whistle went. Siegmund and Helena clasped hands. A warmflush of love and healthy grief came over Siegmund for the last time. The train began to move, drawing Helena's hand from his. 

'Monday, ' she whispered--'Monday, ' meaning that on Monday she shouldreceive a letter from him. He nodded, turned, hesitated, looked at her, turned and walked away. She remained at the window watching him depart. 

'Now, dear, we are manless, ' said Olive in a whisper. But her attempt ata joke fell dead. Everybody was silent and uneasy. 

_Chapter 27_

He hurried down the platform, wincing at every stride, from the memoryof Helena's last look of mute, heavy yearning. He gripped his fists tillthey trembled; his thumbs were again closed under his fingers. Like apicture on a cloth before him he still saw Helena's face, white, rounded, in feature quite mute and expressionless, just made terrible bythe heavy eyes, pleading dumbly. He thought of her going on and on, still at the carriage window looking out; all through the night rushingwest and west to the land of Isolde. Things began to haunt Siegmund likea delirium. He knew not where he was hurrying. Always in front of him, as on a cloth, was the face of Helena, while somewhere behind the clothwas Cornwall, a far-off lonely place where darkness came on intensely. Sometimes he saw a dim, small phantom in the darkness of Cornwall, veryfar off. Then the face of Helena, white, inanimate as a mask, with heavyeyes, came between again. 

He was almost startled to find himself at home, in the porch of hishouse. The door opened. He remembered to have heard the quick thud offeet. It was Vera. She glanced at him, but said nothing. Instinctivelyshe shrank from him. He passed without noticing her. She stood on thedoor-mat, fastening the door, striving to find something to say to him. 

'You have been over an hour, ' she said, still more troubled when shefound her voice shaking. She had no idea what alarmed her. 

'Ay, ' returned Siegmund. 

He went into the dining-room and dropped into his chair, with his headbetween his hands. Vera followed him nervously. 

'Will you have anything to eat?' she asked. 

He looked up at the table, as if the supper laid there were curious andincomprehensible. The delirious lifting of his eyelids showed the wholeof the dark pupils and the bloodshot white of his eyes. Vera held herbreath with fear. He sank his head again and said nothing. Vera sat downand waited. The minutes ticked slowly off. Siegmund neither moved norspoke. At last the clock struck midnight. She was weary with sleep, querulous with trouble. 

'Aren't you going to bed?' she asked. 

Siegmund heard her without paying any attention. He seemed only to halfhear. Vera waited awhile, then repeated plaintively:

'Aren't you going to bed, Father?'

Siegmund lifted his head and looked at her. He loathed the idea ofhaving to move. He looked at her confusedly. 

'Yes, I'm going, ' he said, and his head dropped again. Vera knew he wasnot asleep. She dared not leave him till he was in his bedroom. Againshe sat waiting. 

'Father!' she cried at last. 

He started up, gripping the arms of his chair, trembling. 

'Yes, I'm going, ' he said. 

He rose, and went unevenly upstairs. Vera followed him close behind. 

'If he reels and falls backwards he will kill me, ' she thought, but hedid not fall. From habit he went into the bathroom. While trying tobrush his teeth he dropped the tooth-brush on to the floor. 

'I'll pick it up in the morning, ' he said, continuing deliriously: 'Imust go to bed--I must go to bed--I am very tired. ' He stumbled over thedoor mat into his own room. 

Vera was standing behind the unclosed door of her room. She heard thesneck of his lock. She heard the water still running in the bathroom, trickling with the mysterious sound of water at dead of night. Screwingup her courage, she went and turned off the tap. Then she stood again inher own room, to be near the companionable breathing of her sleepingsister, listening. Siegmund undressed quickly. His one thought was toget into bed. 

'One must sleep, ' he said as he dropped his clothes on the floor. Hecould not find the way to put on his sleeping-jacket, and that made himpant. Any little thing that roused or thwarted his mechanical actionaggravated his sickness till his brain seemed to be bursting. He gotthings right at last, and was in bed. 

Immediately he lapsed into a kind of unconsciousness. He would havecalled it sleep, but such it was not. All the time he could feel hisbrain working ceaselessly, like a machine running with unslackeningrapidity. This went on, interrupted by little flickerings ofconsciousness, for three or four hours. Each time he had a glimmer ofconsciousness he wondered if he made any noise. 

'What am I doing? What is the matter? Am I unconscious? Do I make anynoise? Do I disturb them?' he wondered, and he tried to cast back tofind the record of mechanical sense impression. He believed he couldremember the sound of inarticulate murmuring in his throat. Immediatelyhe remembered, he could feel his throat producing the sounds. Thisfrightened him. Above all things, he was afraid of disturbing thefamily. He roused himself to listen. Everything was breathing insilence. As he listened to this silence he relapsed into his sortof sleep. 

He was awakened finally by his own perspiration. He was terribly hot. The pillow, the bedclothes, his hair, all seemed to be steaming with hotvapour, whilst his body was bathed in sweat. It was coming light. Immediately he shut his eyes again and lay still. He was now conscious, and his brain was irritably active, but his body was a separate thing, aterrible, heavy, hot thing over which he had slight control. 

Siegmund lay still, with his eyes closed, enduring the exquisite tortureof the trickling of drops of sweat. First it would be one gathering andrunning its irregular, hesitating way into the hollow of his neck. Hisevery nerve thrilled to it, yet he felt he could not move more than tostiffen his throat slightly. While yet the nerves in the track of thisdrop were quivering, raw with sensitiveness, another drop would startfrom off the side of his chest, and trickle downwards among the littlemuscles of his side, to drip on to the bed. It was like the running of aspider over his sensitive, moveless body. Why he did not wipe himself hedid not know. He lay still and endured this horrible tickling, whichseemed to bite deep into him, rather than make the effort to move, whichhe loathed to do. The drops ran off his forehead down his temples. Thosehe did not mind: he was blunt there. But they started again, in tiny, vicious spurts, down the sides of his chest, from under his armpits, down the inner sides of his thighs, till he seemed to have a myriadquivering tracks of a myriad running insects over his hot, wet, highly-sensitized body. His nerves were trembling, one and all, withoutrage and vivid suspense. It became unbearable. He felt that, if heendured it another moment, he would cry out, or suffocate and burst. 

He sat up suddenly, threw away the bedclothes, from which came a puff ofhot steam, and began to rub his pyjamas against his sides and his legs. He rubbed madly for a few moments. Then he sighed with relief. He sat onthe side of the bed, moving from the hot dampness of the place where hehad lain. For a moment he thought he would go to sleep. Then, in aninstant his brain seemed to click awake. He was still as loath as everto move, but his brain was no longer clouded in hot vapour: it wasclear. He sat, bowing forward on the side of the bed, hissleeping-jacket open, the dawn stealing into the room, the morning airentering fresh through the wide-flung window-door. He felt a peculiarsense of guilt, of wrongness, in thus having jumped out of bed. Itseemed to him as if he ought to have endured the heat of his body, andthe infernal trickling of the drops of sweat. But at the thought of ithe moved his hands gratefully over his sides, which now were dry, andsoft, and smooth; slightly chilled on the surface perhaps, for he felt asudden tremor of shivering from the warm contact of his hands. 

Siegmund sat up straight: his body was re-animated. He felt the pillowand the groove where he had lain. It was quite wet and clammy. There wasa scent of sweat on the bed, not really unpleasant, but he wantedsomething fresh and cool. 

Siegmund sat in the doorway that gave on to the small veranda. The airwas beautifully cool. He felt his chest again to make sure it was notclammy. It was smooth as silk. This pleased him very much. He looked outon the night again, and was startled. Somewhere the moon was shiningduskily, in a hidden quarter of sky; but straight in front of him, inthe northwest, silent lightning was fluttering. He waited breathlesslyto see if it were true. Then, again, the pale lightning jumped up intothe dome of the fading night. It was like a white bird stirringrestlessly on its nest. The night was drenching thinner, greyer. Thelightning, like a bird that should have flown before the arm of day, moved on its nest in the boughs of darkness, raised itself, flickeredits pale wings rapidly, then sank again, loath to fly. Siegmund watchedit with wonder and delight. 

The day was pushing aside the boughs of darkness, hunting. The poor moonwould be caught when the net was flung. Siegmund went out on the balconyto look at it. There it was, like a poor white mouse, a half-moon, crouching on the mound of its course. It would run nimbly over to thewestern slope, then it would be caught in the net, and the sun wouldlaugh, like a great yellow cat, as it stalked behind playing with itsprey, flashing out its bright paws. The moon, before making its lastrun, lay crouched, palpitating. The sun crept forth, laughing to itselfas it saw its prey could not escape. The lightning, however, leaped lowoff the nest like a bird decided to go, and flew away. Siegmund nolonger saw it opening and shutting its wings in hesitation amid thedisturbance of the dawn. Instead there came a flush, the white lightninggone. The brief pink butterflies of sunrise and sunset rose up from themown fields of darkness, and fluttered low in a cloud. Even in the westthey flew in a narrow, rosy swarm. They separated, thinned, risinghigher. Some, flying up, became golden. Some flew rosy gold across themoon, the mouse-moon motionless with fear. Soon the pink butterflies hadgone, leaving a scarlet stretch like a field of poppies in the fens. Asa wind, the light of day blew in from the east, puff after puff fillingwith whiteness the space which had been the night. Siegmund sat watchingthe last morning blowing in across the mown darkness, till the wholefield of the world was exposed, till the moon was like a dead mousewhich floats on water. 

When the few birds had called in the August morning, when the cocks hadfinished their crowing, when the minute sounds of the early day wereastir, Siegmund shivered disconsolate. He felt tired again, yet he knewhe could not sleep. The bed was repulsive to him. He sat in his chair atthe open door, moving uneasily. What should have been sleep was an acheand a restlessness. He turned and twisted in his chair. 

'Where is Helena?' he asked himself, and he looked out on the morning. 

Everything out of doors was unreal, like a show, like a peepshow. Helenawas an actress somewhere in the brightness of this view. He alone wasout of the piece. He sighed petulantly, pressing back his shoulders asif they ached. His arms, too, ached with irritation, while his headseemed to be hissing with angry irritability. For a long time he satwith clenched teeth, merely holding himself in check. In his presentstate of irritability everything that occurred to his mind stirred himwith dislike or disgust. Helena, music, the pleasant company of friends, the sunshine of the country, each, as it offered itself to his thoughts, was met by an angry contempt, was rejected scornfully. As nothing couldplease or distract him, the only thing that remained was to support thediscord. He felt as if he were a limb out of joint from the body oflife: there occurred to his imagination a disjointed finger, swollen anddiscoloured, racked with pains. The question was, How should he resethimself into joint? The body of life for him meant Beatrice, hischildren, Helena, the Comic Opera, his friends of the orchestra. Howcould he set himself again into joint with these? It was impossible. Towards his family he would henceforward have to bear himself withhumility. That was a cynicism. He would have to leave Helena, which hecould not do. He would have to play strenuously, night after night, themusic of _The Saucy Little Switzer_ which was absurd. In fine, it wasall absurd and impossible. Very well, then, that being so, what remainedpossible? Why, to depart. 'If thine hand offend thee, cut it off. ' Hecould cut himself off from life. It was plain and straightforward. 

But Beatrice, his young children, without him! He was bound by anagreement which there was no discrediting to provide for them. Verywell, he must provide for them. And then what? Humiliation at home, Helena forsaken, musical comedy night after night. That wasinsufferable--impossible! Like a man tangled up in a rope, he was notstrong enough to free himself. He could not break with Helena and returnto a degrading life at home; he could not leave his children and goto Helena. 

Very well, it was impossible! Then there remained only one door which hecould open in this prison corridor of life. Siegmund looked round theroom. He could get his razor, or he could hang himself. He had thoughtof the two ways before. Yet now he was unprovided. His portmanteau stoodat the foot of the bed, its straps flung loose. A portmanteau strapwould do. Then it should be a portmanteau strap!

'Very well!' said Siegmund, 'it is finally settled. I had better writeto Helena, and tell her, and say to her she must go on. I'd bettertell her. '

He sat for a long time with his notebook and a pencil, but he wrotenothing. At last he gave up. 

'Perhaps it is just as well, ' he said to himself. 'She said she wouldcome with me--perhaps that is just as well. She will go to the sea. Whenshe knows, the sea will take her. She must know. '

He took a card, bearing her name and her Cornwall address, from hispocket-book, and laid it on the dressing-table. 

'She will come with me, ' he said to himself, and his heart rose withelation. 

'That is a cowardice, ' he added, looking doubtfully at the card, as ifwondering whether to destroy it. 

'It is in the hands of God. Beatrice may or may not send word to her atTintagel. It is in the hands of God, ' he concluded. 

Then he sat down again. 

'"But for that fear of something after-death, "' he quoted to himself. 

'It is not fear, ' he said. 'The act itself will be horrible andfearsome, but the after-death--it's no more than struggling awake whenyou're sick with a fright of dreams. "We are such stuff as dreams aremade on. "'

Siegmund sat thinking of the after-death, which to him seemed sowonderfully comforting, full of rest, and reassurance, and renewal. Heexperienced no mystical ecstasies. He was sure of a wonderful kindnessin death, a kindness which really reached right through life, thoughhere he could not avail himself of it. Siegmund had always inwardly heldfaith that the heart of life beat kindly towards him. When he wascynical and sulky he knew that in reality it was only a waywardnessof his. 

The heart of life is implacable in its kindness. It may not be moved tofluttering of pity; it swings on uninterrupted by cries of anguish orof hate. 

Siegmund was thankful for this unfaltering sternness of life. There wasno futile hesitation between doom and pity. Therefore, he could submitand have faith. If each man by his crying could swerve the slow, sheeruniverse, what a doom of guilt he might gain. If Life could swerve fromits orbit for pity, what terror of vacillation; and who would wish tobear the responsibility of the deflection?

Siegmund thanked God that life was pitiless, strong enough to take histreasures out of his hands, and to thrust him out of the room;otherwise, how could he go with any faith to death; otherwise, he wouldhave felt the helpless disillusion of a youth who finds his infallibleparents weaker than himself. 

'I know the heart of life is kind, ' said Siegmund, 'because I feel it. Otherwise I would live in defiance. But Life is greater than me oranybody. We suffer, and we don't know why, often. Life doesn't explain. But I can keep faith in it, as a dog has faith in his master. After all, Life is as kind to me as I am to my dog. I have, proportionally, as muchzest. And my purpose towards my dog is good. I need not despairof Life. '

It occurred to Siegmund that he was meriting the old gibe of theatheists. He was shirking the responsibility of himself, turning it overto an imaginary god. 

'Well, ' he said, 'I can't help it. I do not feel altogetherself-responsible. '

The morning had waxed during these investigations. Siegmund had beenvaguely aware of the rousing of the house. He was finally startled intoa consciousness of the immediate present by the calling of Vera athis door. 

'There are two letters for you. Father. '

He looked about him in bewilderment; the hours had passed in a trance, and he had no idea of his time or place. 

'Oh, all right, ' he said, too much dazed to know what it meant. He heardhis daughter going downstairs. Then swiftly returned over him thethrobbing ache of his head and his arms, the discordant jarring ofhis body. 

'What made her bring me the letters?' he asked himself. It was a veryunusual attention. His heart replied, very sullen and shameful: 'Shewanted to know; she wanted to make sure I was all right. '

Siegmund forgot all his speculations on a divine benevolence. Thediscord of his immediate situation overcame every harmony. He did notfetch in the letters. 

'Is it so late?' he said. 'Is there no more time for me?'

He went to look at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. As he walkedacross the room he trembled, and a sickness made his bones feel rotten. He sat down on the bed. 

'What am I going to do?' he asked himself. 

By this time he was shuddering rapidly. A peculiar feeling, as if hisbelly were turned into nothingness, made him want to press his fistsinto his abdomen. He remained shuddering drunkenly, like a drunken manwho is sick, incapable of thought or action. 

A second knock came at the door. He started with a jolt. 

'Here is your shaving-water, ' said Beatrice in cold tones. 'It's halfpast nine. '

'All right, ' said Siegmund, rising from the bed, bewildered. 

'And what time shall you expect dinner?' asked Beatrice. She was stillcontemptuous. 

'Any time. I'm not going out, ' he answered. 

He was surprised to hear the ordinary cool tone of his own voice, for hewas shuddering uncontrollably, and was almost sobbing. In a shaking, bewildered, disordered condition he set about fulfilling his purpose. Hewas hardly conscious of anything he did; try as he would, he could notkeep his hands steady in the violent spasms of shuddering, nor could hecall his mind to think. He was one shuddering turmoil. Yet he performedhis purpose methodically and exactly. In every particular he wasthorough, as if he were the servant of some stern will. It was amesmeric performance, in which the agent trembled withconvulsive sickness. 

_Chapter 28_

Siegmund's lying late in bed made Beatrice very angry. The later itbecame, the more wrathful she grew. At half past nine she had taken uphis shaving-water. Then she proceeded to tidy the dining-room, leavingthe breakfast spread in the kitchen. 

Vera and Frank were gone up to town; they would both be home for dinnerat two o'clock. Marjory was despatched on an errand, taking Gwen withher. The children had no need to return home immediately, therefore itwas highly probable they would play in the field or in the lane for anhour or two. Beatrice was alone downstairs. It was a hot, still morning, when everything outdoors shone brightly, and all indoors was dusked withcoolness and colour. But Beatrice was angry. She moved rapidly anddeterminedly about the dining-room, thrusting old newspapers andmagazines between the cupboard and the wall, throwing the litter in thegrate, which was clear, Friday having been charwoman's day, passingswiftly, lightly over the front of the furniture with the duster. It wasSaturday, when she did not spend much time over the work. In theafternoon she was going out with Vera. That was not, however, whatoccupied her mind as she brushed aside her work. She had determined tohave a settlement with Siegmund, as to how matters should continue. Shewas going to have no more of the past three years' life; things had cometo a crisis, and there must be an alteration. Beatrice was going to dobattle, therefore she flew at her work, thus stirring herself up to aproper heat of blood. All the time, as she thrust things out of sight, or straightened a cover, she listened for Siegmund to come downstairs. 

He did not come, so her anger waxed. 

'He can lie skulking in bed!' she said to herself. 'Here I've been upsince seven, broiling at it. I should think he's pitying himself. Heought to have something else to do. He ought to have to go out to workevery morning, like another man, as his son has to do. He has had toolittle work. He has had too much his own way. But it's come to a stopnow. I'll servant-housekeeper him no longer. '

Beatrice went to clean the step of the front door. She clanged thebucket loudly, every minute becoming more and more angry. That piece ofwork finished, she went into the kitchen. It was twenty past ten. Herwrath was at ignition point. She cleared all the things from the tableand washed them up. As she was so doing, her anger, having reached fullintensity without bursting into flame, began to dissipate in uneasiness. She tried to imagine what Siegmund would do and say to her. As she waswiping a cup, she dropped it, and the smash so unnerved her that herhands trembled almost too much to finish drying the things and puttingthem away. At last it was done. Her next piece of work was to make thebeds. She took her pail and went upstairs. Her heart was beating soheavily in her throat that she had to stop on the landing to recoverbreath. She dreaded the combat with him. Suddenly controlling herself, she said loudly at Siegmund's door, her voice coldly hostile:

'Aren't you going to get up?'

There was not the faintest sound in the house. Beatrice stood in thegloom of the landing, her heart thudding in her ears. 

'It's after half past ten--aren't you going to get up?' she called. 

She waited again. Two letters lay unopened on a small table. Suddenlyshe put down her pail and went into the bathroom. The pot ofshaving-water stood untouched on the shelf, just as she had left it. Shereturned and knocked swiftly at her husband's door, not speaking. Shewaited, then she knocked again, loudly, a long time. Something in thesound of her knocking made her afraid to try again. The noise was dulland thudding: it did not resound through the house with a natural ring, so she thought. She ran downstairs in terror, fled out into the frontgarden, and there looked up at his room. The window-door wasopen--everything seemed quiet. 

Beatrice stood vacillating. She picked up a few tiny pebbles and flungthem in a handful at his door. Some spattered on the panes sharply; somedropped dully in the room. One clinked on the wash-hand bowl. There wasno response. Beatrice was terribly excited. She ran, with her black eyesblazing, and wisps of her black hair flying about her thin temples, outon to the road. By a mercy she saw the window-cleaner just pushing hisladder out of the passage of a house a little farther down the road. Shehurried to him. 

'Will you come and see if there's anything wrong with my husband?' sheasked wildly. 

'Why, mum?' answered the window-cleaner, who knew her, and was humblyfamiliar. 'Is he taken bad or something? Yes, I'll come. '

He was a tall thin man with a brown beard. His clothes were all soloose, his trousers so baggy, that he gave one the impression his limbsmust be bone, and his body a skeleton. He pushed at his ladders witha will. 

'Where is he, Mum?' he asked officiously, as they slowed down at theside passage. 

'He's in his bedroom, and I can't get an answer from him. '

'Then I s'll want a ladder, ' said the window-cleaner, proceeding to liftone off his trolley. He was in a very great bustle. He knew which wasSiegmund's room: he had often seen Siegmund rise from some music he wasstudying and leave the drawing-room when the window-cleaning began, andafterwards he had found him in the small front bedroom. He also knewthere were matrimonial troubles: Beatrice was not reserved. 

'Is it the least of the front rooms he's in?' asked the window-cleaner. 

'Yes, over the porch, ' replied Beatrice. 

The man bustled with his ladder. 

'It's easy enough, ' he said. 'The door's open, and we're soon on thebalcony. '

He set the ladder securely. Beatrice cursed him for a slow, officiousfool. He tested the ladder, to see it was safe, then he cautiouslyclambered up. At the top he stood leaning sideways, bending over theladder to peer into the room. He could see all sorts of things, for hewas frightened. 

'I say there!' he called loudly. 

Beatrice stood below in horrible suspense. 

'Go in!' she cried. 'Go in! Is he there?'

The man stepped very cautiously with one foot on to the balcony, andpeered forward. But the glass door reflected into his eyes. He followedslowly with the other foot, and crept forward, ready at any moment totake flight. 

'Hie, hie!' he suddenly cried in terror, and he drew back. 

Beatrice was opening her mouth to scream, when the window-cleanerexclaimed weakly, as if dubious:

'I believe 'e's 'anged 'imself from the door-'ooks!'

'No!' cried Beatrice. 'No, no, no!'

'I believe 'e 'as!' repeated the man. 

'Go in and see if he's dead!' cried Beatrice. 

The man remained in the doorway, peering fixedly. 

'I believe he is, ' he said doubtfully. 

'No--go and see!' screamed Beatrice. 

The man went into the room, trembling, hesitating. He approached thebody as if fascinated. Shivering, he took it round the loins and triedto lift it down. It was too heavy. 

'I know!' he said to himself, once more bustling now he had something todo. He took his clasp-knife from his pocket, jammed the body betweenhimself and the door so that it should not drop, and began to saw hisway through the leathern strap. It gave. He started, and clutched thebody, dropping his knife. Beatrice, below in the garden, hearing thescuffle and the clatter, began to scream in hysteria. The man hauled thebody of Siegmund, with much difficulty, on to the bed, and withtrembling fingers tried to unloose the buckle in which the strap ran. Itwas bedded in Siegmund's neck. The window-cleaner tugged at itfrantically, till he got it loose. Then he looked at Siegmund. The deadman lay on the bed with swollen, discoloured face, with hissleeping-jacket pushed up in a bunch under his armpits, leaving his sidenaked. Beatrice was screaming below. The window-cleaner, quite unnerved, ran from the room and scrambled down the ladder. Siegmund lay heaped onthe bed, his sleeping-suit twisted and bunched up about him, his facehardly recognizable. 

_Chapter 29_

Helena was dozing down in the cove at Tintagel. She and Louisa and Olivelay on the cool sands in the shadow, and steeped themselves in rest, ina cool, sea-fragrant tranquillity. 

The journey down had been very tedious. After waiting for half an hourin the midnight turmoil of an August Friday in Waterloo station, theyhad seized an empty carriage, only to be followed by fivenorth-countrymen, all of whom were affected by whisky. Olive, Helena, Louisa, occupied three corners of the carriage. The men were distributedbetween them. The three women were not alarmed. Their tipsy travellingcompanions promised to be tiresome, but they had a frank honesty ofmanner that placed them beyond suspicion. The train drew out westward. Helena began to count the miles that separated her from Siegmund. Thenorth-countrymen began to be jolly: they talked loudly in their uncouthEnglish; they sang the music-hall songs of the day; they furtively drankwhisky. Through all this they were polite to the girls. As much couldhardly be said in return of Olive and Louisa. They leaned forwardwhispering one to another. They sat back in their seats laughing, hidingtheir laughter by turning their backs on the men, who were a trifledisconcerted by this amusement. 

The train spun on and on. Little homely clusters of lamps, suggestingthe quiet of country life, turned slowly round through the darkness. Themen dropped into a doze. Olive put a handkerchief over her face and wentto sleep. Louisa gradually nodded and jerked into slumber. Helena satweariedly and watched the rolling of the sleeping travellers and thedull blank of the night sheering off outside. Neither the men nor thewomen looked well asleep. They lurched and nodded stupidly. She thoughtof Bazarof in _Fathers and Sons_, endorsing his opinion on theappearance of sleepers: all but Siegmund. Was Siegmund asleep? Sheimagined him breathing regularly on the pillows; she could see the underarch of his eyebrows, the fine shape of his nostrils, the curve of hislips, as she bent in fancy over his face. 

The dawn came slowly. It was rather cold. Olive wrapped herself in rugsand went to sleep again. Helena shivered, and stared out of the window. There appeared a wanness in the night, and Helena felt inexpressiblydreary. A rosiness spread out far away. It was like a flock offlamingoes hovering over a dark lake. The world vibrated as the suncame up. 

Helena waked the tipsy men at Exeter, having heard them say that therethey must change. Then she walked the platform, very jaded. The trainrushed on again. It was a most, most wearisome journey. The fields werevery flowery, the morning was very bright, but what were these to her?She wanted dimness, sleep, forgetfulness. At eight o'clock, breakfast-time, the 'dauntless three' were driving in a waggonette amidblazing, breathless sunshine, over country naked of shelter, ungraciousand harsh. 

'Why am I doing this?' Helena asked herself. 

The three friends, washed, dressed, and breakfasted. It was too hot torest in the house, so they trudged to the coast, silently, each feelingin an ill humour. 

When Helena was really rested, she took great pleasure in Tintagel. Inthe first place, she found that the cove was exactly, almost identicallythe same as the Walhalla scene in _Walküre_; in the second place, _Tristan_ was here, in the tragic country filled with the flowers of alate Cornish summer, an everlasting reality; in the third place, it wasa sea of marvellous, portentous sunsets, of sweet morning baths, ofpools blossomed with life, of terrible suave swishing of foam whichsuggested the Anadyomene. In sun it was the enchanted land of dividedlovers. Helena for ever hummed fragments of _Tristan_. As she stood onthe rocks she sang, in her little, half-articulate way, bits of Isolde'slove, bits of Tristan's anguish, to Siegmund. 

She had not received her letter on Sunday. That had not very muchdisquieted her, though she was disappointed. On Monday she was miserablebecause of Siegmund's silence, but there was so much of enchantment inTintagel, and Olive and Louisa were in such high spirits, that sheforgot most whiles. 

On Monday night, towards two o'clock, there came a violent storm ofthunder and lightning. Louisa started up in bed at the first clap, waking Helena. The room palpitated with white light for two seconds; themirror on the dressing-table glared supernaturally. Louisa clutched herfriend. All was dark again, the thunder clapping directly. 

'There, wasn't that lovely!' cried Louisa, speaking of the lightning. 'Oo, wasn't it magnificent!--glorious!'

The door clicked and opened: Olive entered in her long white nightgown. She hurried to the bed. 

'I say, dear!' she exclaimed, 'may I come into the fold? I prefer theshelter of your company, dear, during this little lot. '

'Don't you like it?' cried Louisa. 'I think it's _lovely_--lovely!'

There came another slash of lightning. The night seemed to open andshut. It was a pallid vision of a ghost-world between the clangingshutters of darkness. Louisa and Olive clung to each otherspasmodically. 

'There!' exclaimed the former, breathless. 'That was fine! Helena, didyou see that?'

She clasped ecstatically the hand of her friend, who was lying down. Helena's answer was extinguished by the burst of thunder. 

'There's no accounting for tastes, ' said Olive, taking a place in thebed. 'I can't say I'm struck on lightning. What about you, Helena?'

'I'm not struck yet, ' replied Helena, with a sarcastic attempt at ajest. 

'Thank you, dear, ' said Olive; 'you do me the honour of catching hold. '

Helena laughed ironically. 

'Catching what?' asked Louisa, mystified. 

'Why, dear, ' answered Olive, heavily condescending to explain, 'Ioffered Helena the handle of a pun, and she took it. What a flash! Youknow, it's not that I'm afraid. .. . '

The rest of her speech was overwhelmed in thunder. 

Helena lay on the edge of the bed, listening to the ecstatics of onefriend and to the impertinences of the other. In spite of her ironicalfeeling, the thunder impressed her with a sense of fatality. The nightopened, revealing a ghostly landscape, instantly to shut again withblackness. Then the thunder crashed. Helena felt as if some secret werebeing disclosed too swiftly and violently for her to understand. Thethunder exclaimed horribly on the matter. She was sure somethinghad happened. 

Gradually the storm, drew away. The rain came down with a rush, persisted with a bruising sound upon the earth and the leaves. 

'What a deluge!' exclaimed Louisa. 

No one answered her. Olive was falling asleep, and Helena was in no moodto reply. Louisa, disconsolate, lay looking at the black window, nursinga grievance, until she, too, drifted into sleep. Helena was awake; thestorm had left her with a settled sense of calamity. She felt bruised. The sound of the heavy rain bruising the ground outside represented herfeeling; she could not get rid of the bruised sense of disaster. 

She lay wondering what it was, why Siegmund had not written, what couldhave happened to him. She imagined all of them terrible, and endued withgrandeur, for she had kinship with Hedda Gabler. 

'But no, ' she said to herself, 'it is impossible anything should havehappened to him--I should have known. I should have known the moment hisspirit left his body; he would have come to me. But I slept withoutdreams last night, and today I am sure there has been no crisis. It isimpossible it should have happened to him: I should have known. '

She was very certain that in event of Siegmund's death, she would havereceived intelligence. She began to consider all the causes which mightarise to prevent his writing immediately to her. 

'Nevertheless, ' she said at last, 'if I don't hear tomorrow I will goand see. '

She had written to him on Monday. If she should receive no answer byWednesday morning she would return to London. As she was deciding thisshe went to sleep. 

The next day passed without news. Helena was in a state of distress. Herwistfulness touched the other two women very keenly. Louisa waited uponher, was very tender and solicitous. Olive, who was becoming painful byreason of her unsatisfied curiosity, had to be told in part of the stateof affairs. 

Helena looked up a train. She was quite sure by this time that somethingfatal awaited her. 

The next morning she bade her friends a temporary good-bye, saying shewould return in the evening. Immediately the train had gone, Louisarushed into the little waiting-room of the station and wept. Olive shedtears for sympathy and self-pity. She pitied herself that she should belet in for so dismal a holiday. Louisa suddenly stopped crying andsat up:

'Oh, I know I'm a pig, dear, am I not?' she exclaimed. 'Spoiling yourholiday. But I couldn't help it, dear, indeed I could not. '

'My dear Lou!' cried Olive in tragic contralto. 'Don't refrain for mysake. The bargain's made; we can't help what's in the bundle. '

The two unhappy women trudged the long miles back from the station totheir lodging. Helena sat in the swinging express revolving the samethought like a prayer-wheel. It would be difficult to think of anythingmore trying than thus sitting motionless in the train, which itself isthrobbing and bursting its heart with anxiety, while one waits hourafter hour for the blow which falls nearer as the distance lessens. Allthe time Helena's heart and her consciousness were with Siegmund inLondon, for she believed he was ill and needed her. 

'Promise me, ' she had said, 'if ever I were sick and wanted you, youwould come to me. '

'I would come to you from hell!' Siegmund had replied. 

'And if you were ill--you would let me come to you?' she had added. 

'I promise, ' he answered. 

Now Helena believed he was ill, perhaps very ill, perhaps she only couldbe of any avail. The miles of distance were like hot bars of iron acrossher breast, and against them it was impossible to strive. The train didwhat it could. 

That day remains as a smear in the record of Helena's life. In it thereis no spacing of hours, no lettering of experience, merely a smearof suspense. 

Towards six o'clock she alighted, at Surbiton station, deciding thatthis would be the quickest way of getting to Wimbledon. She paced theplatform slowly, as if resigned, but her heart was crying out at thegreat injustice of delay. Presently the local train came in. She hadplanned to buy a local paper at Wimbledon, and if from that source shecould learn nothing, she would go on to his house and inquire. She hadprearranged everything minutely. 

After turning the newspaper several times she found what she sought. 

'The funeral took place, at two o'clock today at Kingston Cemetery, of----. Deceased was a professor of music, and had just returned from aholiday on the South Coast. .. . '

The paragraph, in a bald twelve lines, told her everything. 

'Jury returned a verdict of suicide during temporary insanity. Sympathywas expressed for the widow and children. '

Helena stood still on the station for some time, looking at the print. Then she dropped the paper and wandered into the town, not knowing whereshe was going. 

'That was what I got, ' she said, months afterwards; 'and it was like abrick, it was like a brick. '

She wandered on and on, until suddenly she found herself in the grassylane with only a wire fence bounding her from the open fields on eitherside, beyond which fields, on the left, she could see Siegmund's housestanding florid by the road, catching the western sunlight. Then shestopped, realizing where she had come. For some time she stood lookingat the house. It was no use her going there; it was of no use her goinganywhere; the whole wide world was opened, but in it she had nodestination, and there was no direction for her to take. As if maroonedin the world, she stood desolate, looking from the house of Siegmundover the fields and the hills. Siegmund was gone; why had he not takenher with him?

The evening was drawing on; it was nearly half past seven when Helenalooked at her watch, remembering Louisa, who would be waiting for her toreturn to Cornwall. 

'I must either go to her, or wire to her. She will be in a fever ofsuspense, ' said Helena to herself, and straightway she hurried to catcha tramcar to return to the station. She arrived there at a quarter toeight; there was no train down to Tintagel that night. Therefore shewired the news:

'Siegmund dead. No train tonight. Am going home. '

 * * * * *

This done, she took her ticket and sat down to wait. By the strength ofher will everything she did was reasonable and accurate. But her mindwas chaotic. 

'It was like a brick, ' she reiterated, and that brutal simile was theonly one she could find, months afterwards, to describe her condition. She felt as if something had crashed into her brain, stunning andmaiming her. 

As she knocked at the door of home she was apparently quite calm. Hermother opened to her. 

'What, are you alone?' cried Mrs. Verden. 

'Yes. Louisa did not come up, ' replied Helena, passing into thedining-room. As if by instinct she glanced on the mantelpiece to see ifthere was a letter. There was a newspaper cutting. She went forward andtook it. It was from one of the London papers. 

'Inquest was held today upon the body of ----. '

Helena read it, read it again, folded it up and put it in her purse. Hermother stood watching her, consumed with distress and anxiety. 

'How did you get to know?' she asked. 

'I went to Wimbledon and bought a local paper, ' replied the daughter, inher muted, toneless voice. 

'Did you go to the house?' asked the mother sharply. 

'No, ' replied Helena. 

'I was wondering whether to send you that paper, ' said her motherhesitatingly. 

Helena did not answer her. She wandered about the house mechanically, looking for something. Her mother followed her, trying very gentlyto help her. 

For some time Helena sat at table in the dining-room staring before her. Her parents moved restlessly in silence, trying not to irritate her bywatching her, praying for something to change the fixity of her look. They acknowledged themselves helpless; like children, they feltpowerless and forlorn, and were very quiet. 

'Won't you go to rest, Nellie?' asked the father at last. He was anunobtrusive, obscure man, whose sympathy was very delicate, whoseordinary attitude was one of gentle irony. 

'Won't you go to rest, Nellie?' he repeated. 

Helena shivered slightly. 

'Do, my dear, ' her mother pleaded. 'Let me take you to bed. '

Helena rose. She had a great horror of being fussed or petted, but thisnight she went dully upstairs, and let her mother help her to undress. When she was in bed the mother stood for some moments looking at her, yearning to beseech her daughter to pray to God; but she dared not. Helena moved with a wild impatience under her mother's gaze. 

'Shall I leave you the candle?' said Mrs Verden. 

'No, blow it out, ' replied the daughter. The mother did so, andimmediately left the room, going downstairs to her husband. As sheentered the dining-room he glanced up timidly at her. She was a tall, erect woman. Her brown eyes, usually so swift and searching, werehaggard with tears that did not fall. He bowed down, obliteratinghimself. His hands were tightly clasped. 

'Will she be all right if you leave her?' he asked. 

'We must listen, ' replied the mother abruptly. 

The parents sat silent in their customary places. Presently Mrs. Verdencleared the supper table, sweeping together a few crumbs from the floorin the place where Helena had sat, carefully putting her pieces ofbroken bread under the loaf to keep moist. Then she sat down again. Onecould see she was keenly alert to every sound. The father had his handto his head; he was thinking and praying. 

Mrs. Verden suddenly rose, took a box of matches from the mantelpiece, and hurrying her stately, heavy tread, went upstairs. Her husbandfollowed in much trepidation, hovering near the door of his daughter'sroom. The mother tremblingly lit the candle. Helena's aspect distressedand alarmed her. The girl's face was masked as if in sleep, butoccasionally it was crossed by a vivid expression of fear or horror. Herwide eyes showed the active insanity of her brain. From time to time sheuttered strange, inarticulate sounds. Her mother held her hands andsoothed her. Although she was hardly aware of the mother's presence, Helena was more tranquil. The father went downstairs and turned out thelight. He brought his wife a large shawl, which he put on the bed-rail, and silently left the room. Then he went and kneeled down by his ownbedside, and prayed. 

Mrs Verden watched her daughter's delirium, and all the time, in a kindof mental chant, invoked the help of God. Once or twice the girl came toherself, drew away her hand on recognizing the situation, and turnedfrom her mother, who patiently waited until, upon relapse, she couldsoothe her daughter again. Helena was glad of her mother's presence, butshe could not bear to be looked at. 

Towards morning the girl fell naturally asleep. The mother regarded herclosely, lightly touched her forehead with her lips, and went away, having blown out the candle. She found her husband kneeling in hisnightshirt by the bed. He muttered a few swift syllables, and looked upas she entered. 

'She is asleep, ' whispered the wife hoarsely. 

'Is it a--a natural sleep?' hesitated the husband. 

'Yes. I think it is. I think she will be all right. '

'Thank God!' whispered the father, almost inaudibly. 

He held his wife's hand as she lay by his side. He was the comforter. She felt as if now she might cry and take comfort and sleep. He, thequiet, obliterated man, held her hand, taking the responsibilityupon himself. 

_Chapter 30_

Beatrice was careful not to let the blow of Siegmund's death fall withfull impact upon her. As it were, she dodged it. She was afraid to meetthe accusation of the dead Siegmund, with the sacred jury of memories. When the event summoned her to stand before the bench of her own soul'sunderstanding, she fled, leaving the verdict upon herself eternallysuspended. 

When the neighbours had come, alarmed by her screaming, she had allowedherself to be taken away from her own house into the home of aneighbour. There the children were brought to her. There she wept, andstared wildly about, as if by instinct seeking to cover her mind withconfusion. The good neighbour controlled matters in Siegmund's house, sending for the police, helping to lay out the dead body. Before Veraand Frank came home, and before Beatrice returned to her own place, thebedroom of Siegmund was locked. 

Beatrice avoided seeing the body of her husband; she gave him one swiftglance, blinded by excitement; she never saw him after his death. Shewas equally careful to avoid thinking of him. Whenever her thoughtswandered towards a consideration of how he must have felt, what hisinner life must have been, during the past six years, she felt herselfdilate with terror, and she hastened to invoke protection. 

'The children!' she said to herself--'the children. I must live for thechildren; I must think for the children. '

This she did, and with much success. All her tears and her wildness rosefrom terror and dismay rather than from grief. She managed to fend backa grief that would probably have broken her. Vera was toopractical-minded, she had too severe a notion of what ought to be andwhat ought not, ever to put herself in her father's place and try tounderstand him. She concerned herself with judging him sorrowfully, exonerating him in part because Helena, that other, was so much more toblame. Frank, as a sentimentalist, wept over the situation, not over thepersonae. The children were acutely distressed by the harassingbehaviour of the elders, and longed for a restoration of equanimity. Bycommon consent no word was spoken of Siegmund. As soon as possible afterthe funeral Beatrice moved from South London to Harrow. The memory ofSiegmund began to fade rapidly. 

Beatrice had had all her life a fancy for a more open, public form ofliving than that of a domestic circle. She liked strangers about thehouse; they stimulated her agreeably. Therefore, nine months after thedeath of her husband, she determined to carry out the scheme of herheart, and take in boarders. She came of a well-to-do family, with whomshe had been in disgrace owing to her early romantic but degradingmarriage with a young lad who had neither income nor profession. In thetragic, but also sordid, event of his death, the Waltons returned againto the aid of Beatrice. They came hesitatingly, and kept their gloveson. They inquired what she intended to do. She spoke highly andhopefully of her future boarding-house. They found her a couple ofhundred pounds, glad to salve their consciences so cheaply. Siegmund'sfather, a winsome old man with a heart of young gold, was always readyfurther to diminish his diminished income for the sake of hisgrandchildren. So Beatrice was set up in a fairly large house inHighgate, was equipped with two maids, and gentlemen were invited tocome and board in her house. It was a huge adventure, wherein Beatricewas delighted. Vera was excited and interested; Frank was excited, butdoubtful and grudging; the children were excited, elated, wondering. Theworld was big with promise. 

Three gentlemen came, before a month was out, to Beatrice'sestablishment. She hoped shortly to get a fourth or a fifth. Her planwas to play hostess, and thus bestow on her boarders the inestimableblessing of family life. Breakfast was at eight-thirty, and everyoneattended. Vera sat opposite Beatrice, Frank sat on the maternal righthand; Mr MacWhirter, who was _superior_, sat on the left hand; next himsat Mr Allport, whose opposite was Mr Holiday. All were young men ofless than thirty years. Mr MacWhirter was tall, fair, and stoutish; hewas very quietly spoken, was humorous and amiable, yet extraordinarilylearned. He never, by any chance, gave himself away, maintaining alwaysan absolute reserve amid all his amiability. Therefore Frank would havedone anything to win his esteem, while Beatrice was deferential to him. Mr Allport was tall and broad, and thin as a door; he had also aremarkably small chin. He was naïve, inclined to suffer in the firstpangs of disillusionment; nevertheless, he was waywardly humorous, sometimes wistful, sometimes petulant, always gallant. Therefore Veraliked him, whilst Beatrice mothered him. Mr Holiday was short, verystout, very ruddy, with black hair. He had a disagreeable voice, wasvulgar in the grain, but officiously helpful if appeal were made to him. Therefore Frank hated him. Vera liked his handsome, lusty appearance, but resented bitterly his behaviour. Beatrice was proud of the superiorand skilful way in which she handled him, clipping him into shapewithout hurting him. 

One evening in July, eleven months after the burial of Siegmund, Beatrice went into the dining-room and found Mr Allport sitting with hiselbow on the window-sill, looking out on the garden. It was half-pastseven. The red rents between the foliage of the trees showed the sun wassetting; a fragrance of evening-scented stocks filtered into the roomthrough the open window; towards the south the moon was budding out ofthe twilight. 

'What, you here all alone!' exclaimed Beatrice, who had just come fromputting the children to bed. 'I thought you had gone out. '

'No--o! What's the use, ' replied Mr Allport, turning to look at hislandlady, 'of going out? There's nowhere to go. '

'Oh, come! There's the Heath, and the City--and you must join a tennisclub. Now I know just the thing--the club to which Vera belongs. '

'Ah, yes! You go down to the City--but there's nothing there--what Imean to say--you want a pal--and even then--well'--he drawled theword--'we-ell, it's merely escaping from yourself--killing time. '

'Oh, don't say that!' exclaimed Beatrice. 'You want to enjoy life. '

'Just so! Ah, just so!' exclaimed Mr Allport. 'But all the same--it'slike this--you only get up to the same thing tomorrow. What I mean tosay--what's the good, after all? It's merely living because you'vegot to. '

'You are too pessimistic altogether for a young man. I look at itdifferently myself; yet I'll be bound I have more cause for grumbling. What's the trouble now?'

'We-ell--you can't lay your finger on a thing like that! What I mean tosay--it's nothing very definite. But, after all--what is there to do butto hop out of life as quickly as possible? That's the best way. '

Beatrice became suddenly grave. 

'You talk in that way, Mr. Allport, ' she said. 'You don't think of theothers. '

'I don't know, ' he drawled. 'What does it matter? Look here--who'd care?What I mean to say--for long?'

'That's all very easy, but it's cowardly, ' replied Beatrice gravely. 

'Nevertheless, ' said Mr. Allport, 'it's true--isn't it?'

'It is not--and I _should_ know, ' replied Beatrice, drawing a cloak ofreserve ostentatiously over her face. Mr. Allport looked at her andwaited. Beatrice relaxed toward the pessimistic young man. 

'Yes, ' she said, 'I call it very cowardly to want to get out of yourdifficulties in that way. Think what you inflict on other people. Youmen, you're all selfish. The burden is always left for the women. '

'Ah, but then, ' said Mr. Allport very softly and sympathetically, looking at Beatrice's black dress, 'I've no one depending on _me_. '

'No--you haven't--but you've a mother and sister. The women always haveto bear the brunt. '

Mr. Allport looked at Beatrice, and found her very pathetic. 

'Yes, they do rather, ' he replied sadly, tentatively waiting. 

'My husband--' began Beatrice. The young man waited. 'My husband was oneof your sort: he ran after trouble, and when he'd found it--he couldn'tcarry it off--and left it--to me. '

Mr. Allport looked at her very sympathetically. 

'You don't mean it!' he exclaimed softly. 'Surely he didn't--?'

Beatrice nodded, and turned aside her face. 

'Yes, ' she said. 'I know what it is to bear that kind of thing--and it'sno light thing, I can assure you. '

There was a suspicion of tears in her voice. 

'And when was this, then--that he--?' asked Mr. Allport, almost withreverence. 

'Only last year, ' replied Beatrice. 

Mr. Allport made a sound expressing astonishment and dismay. Little bylittle Beatrice told him so much: 'Her husband had got entangled withanother woman. She herself had put up with it for a long time. At lastshe had brought matters to a crisis, declaring what she should do. Hehad killed himself--hanged himself--and left her penniless. Her people, who were very wealthy, had done for her as much as she would allow them. She and Frank and Vera had done the rest. She did not mind for herself;it was for Frank and Vera, who should be now enjoying their carelessyouth, that her heart was heavy. '

There was silence for a while. Mr. Allport murmured his sympathy, andsat overwhelmed with respect for this little woman who was unbroken bytragedy. The bell rang in the kitchen. Vera entered. 

'Oh, what a nice smell! Sitting in the dark, Mother?'

'I was just trying to cheer up Mr. Allport; he is very despondent. '

'Pray do not overlook me, ' said Mr. Allport, rising and bowing. 

'Well! I did not see you! Fancy your sitting in the twilight chattingwith the mater. You must have been an unscrupulous bore, maman. '

'On the contrary, ' replied Mr. Allport, 'Mrs. MacNair has been so goodas to bear with me making a fool of myself. '

'In what way?' asked Vera sharply. 

'Mr. Allport is so despondent. I think he must be in love, ' saidBeatrice playfully. 

'Unfortunately, I am not--or at least I am not yet aware of it, ' saidMr. Allport, bowing slightly to Vera. 

She advanced and stood in the bay of the window, her skirt touching theyoung man's knees. She was tall and graceful. With her hands claspedbehind her back she stood looking up at the moon, now white upon therichly darkening sky. 

'Don't look at the moon, Miss MacNair, it's all rind, ' said Mr Allportin melancholy mockery. 'Somebody's bitten all the meat out of our sliceof moon, and left us nothing but peel. '

'It certainly does look like a piece of melon-shell--one portion, 'replied Vera. 

'Never mind, Miss MacNair, ' he said, 'Whoever got the slice found itraw, I think. '

'Oh, I don't know, ' she said. 'But isn't it a beautiful evening? I willjust go and see if I can catch the primroses opening. '

'What primroses?' he exclaimed. 

'Evening primroses--there are some. '

'Are there?' he said in surprise. Vera smiled to herself. 

'Yes, come and look, ' she said. 

The young man rose with alacrity. 

Mr Holiday came into the dining-room whilst they were down the garden. 

'What, nobody in!' they heard him exclaim. 

'There is Holiday, ' murmured Mr Allport resentfully. 

Vera did not answer. Holiday came to the open window, attracted by thefragrance. 

'Ho! that's where you are!' he cried in his nasal tenor, which annoyedVera's trained ear. She wished she had not been wearing a white dress tobetray herself. 

'What have you got?' he asked. 

'Nothing in particular, ' replied Mr Allport. 

Mr Holiday sniggered. 

'Oh, well, if it's nothing particular and private--' said Mr Holiday, and with that he leaped over the window-sill and went to join them. 

'Curst fool!' muttered Mr Allport. 'I beg your pardon, ' he added swiftlyto Vera. 

'Have you ever noticed, Mr Holiday, ' asked Vera, as if very friendly, 'how awfully tantalizing these flowers are? They won't open whileyou're looking. '

'No, ' sniggered he, I don't blame 'em. Why should they give themselvesaway any more than you do? You won't open while you're watched. ' Henudged Allport facetiously with his elbow. 

After supper, which was late and badly served, the young men were inpoor spirits. Mr MacWhirter retired to read. Mr Holiday sat picking histeeth; Mr. Allport begged Vera to play the piano. 

'Oh, the piano is not my instrument; mine was the violin, but I do notplay now, ' she replied. 

'But you will begin again, ' pleaded Mr. Allport. 

'No, never!' she said decisively. Allport looked at her closely. Thefamily tragedy had something to do with her decision, he was sure. Hewatched her interestedly. 

'Mother used to play--' she began. 

'Vera!' said Beatrice reproachfully. 

'Let us have a song, ' suggested Mr. Holiday. 

'Mr. Holiday wishes to sing, Mother, ' said Vera, going to themusic-rack. 

'Nay--I--it's not me, ' Holiday began. 

'"The Village Blacksmith", ' said Vera, pulling out the piece. Holidayadvanced. Vera glanced at her mother. 

'But I have not touched the piano for--for years, I am sure, ' protestedBeatrice. 

'You can play beautifully, ' said Vera. 

Beatrice accompanied the song. Holiday sang atrociously. Allport glaredat him. Vera remained very calm. 

At the end Beatrice was overcome by the touch of the piano. She went outabruptly. 

'Mother has suddenly remembered that tomorrow's jellies are not made, 'laughed Vera. 

Allport looked at her, and was sad. 

When Beatrice returned, Holiday insisted she should play again. Shewould have found it more difficult to refuse than to comply. 

Vera retired early, soon to be followed by Allport and Holiday. At halfpast ten Mr. MacWhirter came in with his ancient volume. Beatrice wasstudying a cookery-book. 

'You, too, at the midnight lamp!' exclaimed MacWhirter politely. 

'Ah, I am only looking for a pudding for tomorrow, ' Beatrice replied. 

'We shall feel hopelessly in debt if you look after us so well, ' smiledthe young man ironically. 

'I must look after you, ' said Beatrice. 

'You do--wonderfully. I feel that we owe you large debts of gratitude. 'The meals were generally late, and something was always wrong. 

'Because I scan a list of puddings?' smiled Beatrice uneasily. 

'For the puddings themselves, and all your good things. The piano, forinstance. That was very nice indeed. ' He bowed to her. 

'Did it disturb you? But one does not hear very well in the study. '

'I opened the door, ' said MacWhirter, bowing again. 

'It is not fair, ' said Beatrice. 'I am clumsy now--clumsy. I once couldplay. '

'You play excellently. Why that "once could"?' said MacWhirter. 

'Ah, you are amiable. My old master would have said differently, ' shereplied. 

'We, ' said MacWhirter, 'are humble amateurs, and to us you are more thanexcellent. '

'Good old Monsieur Fannière, how he would scold me! He said I would nottake my talent out of the napkin. He would quote me the New Testament. Ialways think Scripture false in French, do not you?'

'Er--my acquaintance with modern languages is not extensive, I regret tosay. '

'No? I was brought up at a convent school near Rouen. '

'Ah--that would be very interesting. '

'Yes, but I was there six years, and the interest wears off everything. '

'Alas!' assented MacWhirter, smiling. 

'Those times were very different from these, ' said Beatrice. 

'I should think so, ' said MacWhirter, waxing grave and sympathetic. 

_Chapter 31_

In the same month of July, not yet a year after Siegmund's death, Helenasat on the top of the tramcar with Cecil Byrne. She was dressed in bluelinen, for the day had been hot. Byrne was holding up to her ayellow-backed copy of _Einsame Menschen_, and she was humming the air ofthe Russian folk-song printed on the front page, frowning, nodding withher head, and beating time with her hand to get the rhythm of the song. She turned suddenly to him, and shook her head, laughing. 

'I can't get it--it's no use. I think it's the swinging of the carprevents me getting the time, ' she said. 

'These little outside things always come a victory over you, ' helaughed. 

'Do they?' she replied, smiling, bending her head against the wind. Itwas six o'clock in the evening. The sky was quite overcast, after a dim, warm day. The tramcar was leaping along southwards. Out of the cornersof his eyes Byrne watched the crisp morsels of hair shaken on her neckby the wind. 

'Do you know, ' she said, 'it feels rather like rain. '

'Then, ' said he calmly, but turning away to watch the people below onthe pavement, 'you certainly ought not to be out. '

'I ought not, ' she said, 'for I'm totally unprovided. '

Neither, however, had the slightest intention of turning back. 

Presently they descended from the car, and took a road leading uphilloff the highway. Trees hung over one side, whilst on the other sidestood a few villas with lawns upraised. Upon one of these lawns twogreat sheep-dogs rushed and stood at the brink of the, grassy declivity, at some height above the road, barking and urging boisterously. Helenaand Byrne stood still to watch them. One dog was grey, as is usual, theother pale fawn. They raved extravagantly at the two pedestrians. Helenalaughed at them. 

'They are--' she began, in her slow manner. 

'Villa sheep-dogs baying us wolves, ' he continued. 

'No, ' she said, 'they remind me of Fafner and Fasolt. '

'Fasolt? They _are_ like that. I wonder if they really dislike us. '

'It appears so, ' she laughed. 

'Dogs generally chum up to me, ' he said. 

Helena began suddenly to laugh. He looked at her inquiringly. 

'I remember, ' she said, still laughing, 'at Knockholt--you--a half-grownlamb--a dog--in procession. ' She marked the position of the three withher finger. 

'What an ass I must have looked!' he said. 

'Sort of silent Pied Piper, ' she laughed. 

'Dogs do follow me like that, though, ' he said. 

'They did Siegmund, ' she said. 

'Ah!' he exclaimed. 

'I remember they had for a long time a little brown dog that followedhim home. '

'Ah!' he exclaimed. 

'I remember, too, ' she said, 'a little black-and-white kitten thatfollowed me. Mater _would not_ have it in--she would not. And I rememberfinding it, a few days after, dead in the road. I don't think I everquite forgave my mater that. '

'More sorrow over one kitten brought to destruction than over all thesufferings of men, ' he said. 

She glanced at him and laughed. He was smiling ironically. 

'For the latter, you see, ' she replied, 'I am not responsible. '

As they neared the top of the hill a few spots of rain fell. 

'You know, ' said Helena, 'if it begins it will continue all night. Lookat that!'

She pointed to the great dark reservoir of cloud ahead. 

'Had we better go back?' he asked. 

'Well, we will go on and find a thick tree; then we can shelter till wesee how it turns out. We are not far from the cars here. '

They walked on and on. The raindrops fell more thickly, then thinnedaway. 

'It is exactly a year today, ' she said, as they-walked on the roundshoulder of the down with an oak-wood on the left hand. 'Exactly!'

'What anniversary is it, then?' he inquired. 

'Exactly a year today, Siegmund and I walked here--by the day, Thursday. We went through the larch-wood. Have you ever been through thelarch-wood?'

'No. '

'We will go, then, ' she said. 

'History repeats itself, ' he remarked. 

'How?' she asked calmly. 

He was pulling at the heads of the cocksfoot grass as he walked. 

'I see no repetition, ' she added. 

'No, ' he exclaimed bitingly; 'you are right!'

They went on in silence. As they drew near a farm they saw the menunloading a last wagon of hay on to a very brown stack. He sniffed theair. Though he was angry, he spoke. 

'They got that hay rather damp, ' he said. 'Can't you smell it--like hottobacco and sandal-wood?'

'What, is that the stack?' she asked. 

'Yes, it's always like that when it's picked damp. '

The conversation was restarted, but did not flourish. When they turnedon to a narrow path by the side of the field he went ahead. Leaning overthe hedge, he pulled three sprigs of honeysuckle, yellow as butter, fullof scent; then he waited for her. She was hanging her head, looking inthe hedge-bottom. He presented her with the flowers without speaking. She bent forward, inhaled the rich fragrance, and looked up at him overthe blossoms with her beautiful, beseeching blue eyes. He smiledgently to her. 

'Isn't it nice?' he said. 'Aren't they fine bits?'

She took them without answering, and put one piece carefully in herdress. It was quite against her rule to wear a flower. He took his placeby her side. 

'I always like the gold-green of cut fields, ' he said. 'They seem togive off sunshine even when the sky's greyer than a tabby cat. '

She laughed, instinctively putting out her hand towards the glowingfield on her right. 

They entered the larch-wood. There the chill wind was changed intosound. Like a restless insect he hovered about her, like a butterflywhose antennae flicker and twitch sensitively as they gatherintelligence, touching the aura, as it were, of the female. He wasexceedingly delicate in his handling of her. 

The path was cut windingly through the lofty, dark, and closely serriedtrees, which vibrated like chords under the soft bow of the wind. Nowand again he would look down passages between the trees--narrow pillaredcorridors, dusky as if webbed across with mist. All round was atwilight, thickly populous with slender, silent trunks. Helena stoodstill, gazing up at the tree-tops where the bow of the wind was drawn, causing slight, perceptible quivering. Byrne walked on without her. At abend in the path he stood, with his hand on the roundness of alarch-trunk, looking back at her, a blue fleck in the brownness ofcongregated trees. She moved very slowly down the path. 

'I might as well not exist, for all she is aware of me, ' he said tohimself bitterly. Nevertheless, when she drew near he said brightly:

'Have you noticed how the thousands of dry twigs between the trunks makea brown mist, a brume?'

She looked at him suddenly as if interrupted. 

'H'm? Yes, I see what you mean. '

She smiled at him, because of his bright boyish tone and manner. 

'That's the larch fog, ' he laughed. 

'Yes, ' she said, 'you see it in pictures. I had not noticed it before. '

He shook the tree on which his hand was laid. 

'It laughs through its teeth, ' he said, smiling, playing with everythinghe touched. 

As they went along she caught swiftly at her hat; then she stooped, picking up a hat-pin of twined silver. She laughed to herself as ifpleased by a coincidence. 

'Last year, ' she said, 'the larch-fingers stole both my pins--the sameones. '

He looked at her, wondering how much he was filling the place of a ghostwith warmth. He thought of Siegmund, and seemed to see him swinging downthe steep bank out of the wood exactly as he himself was doing at themoment, with Helena stepping carefully behind. He always felt a deepsympathy and kinship with Siegmund; sometimes he thought hehated Helena. 

They had emerged at the head of a shallow valley--one of those widehollows in the North Downs that are like a great length of tapestry heldloosely by four people. It was raining. Byrne looked at the dark bluedots rapidly appearing on the sleeves of Helena's dress. They walked ona little way. The rain increased. Helena looked about for shelter. 

'Here, ' said Byrne--'here is our tent--a black tartar's--ready pitched. '

He stooped under the low boughs of a very large yew tree that stood justback from the path. She crept after him. It was really a very goodshelter. Byrne sat on the ledge of a root, Helena beside him. He lookedunder the flap of the black branches down the valley. The grey rain wasfalling steadily; the dark hollow under the tree was immersed in themonotonous sound of it. In the open, where the bright young corn shoneintense with wet green, was a fold of sheep. Exposed in a large pen onthe hillside, they were moving restlessly; now and again came the'tong-ting-tong' of a sheep-bell. First the grey creatures huddled inthe high corner, then one of them descended and took shelter by thegrowing corn lowest down. The rest followed, bleating and pushing eachother in their anxiety to reach the place of desire, which was no whitbetter than where they stood before. 

'That's like us all, ' said Byrne whimsically. 'We're all penned out on awet evening, but we think, if only we could get where someone else is, it would be deliciously cosy. '

Helena laughed swiftly, as she always did when he became whimsical andfretful. He sat with his head bent down, smiling with his lips, but hiseyes melancholy. She put her hand out to him. He took it withoutapparently observing it, folding his own hand over it, and unconsciouslyincreasing the pressure. 

'You are cold, ' he said. 

'Only my hands, and they usually are, ' she replied gently. 

'And mine are generally warm. '

'I know that, ' she said. 'It's almost the only warmth I get now--yourhands. They really are wonderfully warm and close-touching. '

'As good as a baked potato, ' he said. 

She pressed his hand, scolding him for his mockery. 

'So many calories per week--isn't that how we manage it?' he asked. 'Oncredit?'

She put her other hand on his, as if beseeching him to forgo his irony, which hurt her. They sat silent for some time. The sheep broke theircluster, and began to straggle back to the upper side of the pen. 

'Tong-tong, tong, ' went the forlorn bell. The rain waxed louder. 

Byrne was thinking of the previous week. He had gone to Helena's home toread German with her as usual. She wanted to understand Wagner in hisown language. 

In each of the arm-chairs, reposing across the arms, was a violin-case. He had sat down on the edge of one seat in front of the sacred fiddle. Helena had come quickly and removed the violin. 

'I shan't knock it--it is all right, ' he had said, protesting. 

This was Siegmund's violin, which Helena had managed to purchase, andByrne was always ready to yield its precedence. 

'It was all right, ' he repeated. 

'But you were not, ' she had replied gently. 

Since that time his heart had beat quick with excitement. Now he sat ina little storm of agitation, of which nothing was betrayed by hisgloomy, pondering expression, but some of which was communicated toHelena by the increasing pressure of his hand, which adjusted itselfdelicately in a stronger and stronger stress over her fingers and palm. By some movement he became aware that her hand was uncomfortable. Herelaxed. She sighed, as if restless and dissatisfied. She wondered whathe was thinking of. He smiled quietly. 

'The Babes in the Wood, ' he teased. 

Helena laughed, with a sound of tears. In the tree overhead some birdbegan to sing, in spite of the rain, a broken evening song. 

'That little beggar sees it's a hopeless case, so he reminds us ofheaven. But if he's going to cover us with yew-leaves, he's sethimself a job. '

Helena laughed again, and shivered. He put his arm round her, drawingher nearer his warmth. After this new and daring move neither spokefor a while. 

'The rain continues, ' he said. 

'And will do, ' she added, laughing. 

'Quite content, ' he said. 

The bird overhead chirruped loudly again. 

'"Strew on us roses, roses, "' quoted Byrne, adding after a while, inwistful mockery: '"And never a sprig of yew"--eh?'

Helena made a small sound of tenderness and comfort for him, andweariness for herself. She let herself sink a little closer against him. 

'Shall it not be so--no yew?' he murmured. 

He put his left hand, with which he had been breaking larch-twigs, onher chilled wrist. Noticing that his fingers were dirty, he heldthem up. 

'I shall make marks on you, ' he said. 

'They will come off, ' she replied. 

'Yes, we come clean after everything. Time scrubs all sorts of scars offus. '

'Some scars don't seem to go, ' she smiled. 

And she held out her other arm, which had been pressed warm against hisside. There, just above the wrist, was the red sun-inflammation fromlast year. Byrne regarded it gravely. 

'But it's wearing off--even that, ' he said wistfully. 

Helena put her arms found him under his coat. She was cold. He felt ahot wave of joy suffuse him. Almost immediately she released him, andtook off her hat. 

'That is better, ' he said. 

'I was afraid of the pins, ' said she. 

'I've been dodging them for the last hour, ' he said, laughing, as sheput her arms under his coat again for warmth. 

She laughed, and, making a small, moaning noise, as if of weariness andhelplessness, she sank her head on his chest. He put down his cheekagainst hers. 

'I want rest and warmth, ' she said, in her dull tones. 

'All right!' he murmured.