Page:The Trespasser, Lawrence, 1912.djvu/93

Rh night were home and welcome to her. They drew nearer to the shaggy 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 you will be tired.”

She stood alone by the walls of gorse. The lights that had flickered into being during the dusk grew stronger, so that a little farmhouse down the hill glowed with great importance on the night, while the far-off invisible sea became like a roadway, large and mysterious, its specks of light moving slowly, and its bigger lamps stationed out amid the darkness. Helena wanted the day-wanness to be quite wiped off the west. She asked for the full black night, that would obliterate everything save Siegmund. Siegmund it was that the whole world meant. The darkness, the gorse, the downs, the specks of light, seemed only to bespeak him. She waited for him to come back. She could hardly endure the 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, cool odour of