Page:The Trespasser, Lawrence, 1912.djvu/173

Rh 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?”