LITMIR.BIZ

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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 of Siegmund’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 me ill.’ Meanwhile, perversely, he gave his face and his hot black hair to the sun.

      Helena lay in what shadow he afforded. The heat put out all her thought-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 somewhat sun-intoxicated. Siegmund chose the hot sand, where no shade was, on which to lie.

      ‘Shall we not go under the rocks?’ said Helena.

      ‘Look!’ he said, ‘the sun is beating on the cliffs. It is hotter, more suffocating, there.’

      So they lay down in the glare, Helena watching the foam retreat slowly with a cool splash; Siegmund thinking. The naked body of heat was dreadful.

      ‘My arms, Siegmund,’ said she. ‘They feel as if they were dipped in fire.’

      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 through him, 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 only I could have you a little longer. I have never had you . . . ’

      Some sound of failure, some tone telling her it was too late, some ring of despair in his quietness, made Helena cling to him wildly, with a savage little cry as if she were wounded. She clung to him, almost beside herself. She could not lose him, she could not spare him. She would not let him go. Helena was, for the moment, frantic.

      He held her safely, saying nothing until she was calmer, when, with his lips 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 was only a shadow, Siegmund. It was a lie, it was nothing real. Can’t you forget it, dear?’

      ‘You can’t do without me?’ he asked.

      ‘If I lose you I am lost,’ answered she with swift decision. She had no knowledge of weeping, yet her tears were wet on his face. He held her safely; her arms were hidden under his coat.

      ‘I will have no mercy on those shadows the next time they come between us,’ 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 reft away.

      Siegmund felt very peaceful. He lay with his arms about her, listening to the backward-creeping tide. All his thoughts, like bees, were flown out to sea and lost.

      ‘If I had her more, I should understand her through and through. If we were side by side we should grow together. If we could stay here, I should 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 only two red blossoms left. Then the stem would have set to seed. Helena leaned her head upon the breast of Siegmund, her arms clasping, under his coat, his body, which swelled and sank gently, with the quiet of great 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 of Siegmund in my arms. . . . ’

      But the clock ticked on in the heat, the seconds marked off by the falling 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 it were dark. . . . ’

      But the waves softly marked the minutes, retreating farther, leaving the bare rocks to bleach and the weed to shrivel.

      Gradually, like the shadow on a dial, the knowledge that it was time to rise and go crept upon them. Although they remained silent, each knew that the other felt the same weight of responsibility, the shadow-finger of the sundial travelling over them. The alternative was, not to return, to let the finger travel and be gone. But then . . . Helena knew she must not let the time cross her; she must rise before it was too late, and travel before the coming finger. Siegmund hoped she would not get up. He lay 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 over him. He did not look at her. She saw his forehead was swollen and inflamed with the sun. Very gently she wiped from it the glistening sweat. He closed his eyes, and she wiped his cheeks and his mouth. Still he did not look at her. She bent very close to him, feeling her heart crushed 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 of air. 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 too strong for her. She lifted his hand, which lay swollen with heat on the sand, 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. She put her arm round his neck, and pressed his head against her skirt.

      Siegmund knew he was making it unbearable for her. Pulling himself together, 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 his left hand, and had one arm round his neck.

      ‘I can’t see the figures,’ he said. ‘Everything is dimmed, as if it were coming dark.’

      ‘Yes,’ replied Helena, in that reedy, painful tone of hers. ‘My eyes were the same. It is the strong sunlight.’

      ‘I can’t,’ he repeated, and he was rather surprised —‘I can’t see the time. 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 time to catch the train. He stood up, moved inside his clothing, saying: ‘I feel almost stunned by the heat. I can hardly see, and all my feeling in my 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 too much — what is too much?’

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