Page:The Trespasser, Lawrence, 1912.djvu/97

Rh “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 men have plucked.”

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

“What does it matter, Helena?” he murmured. “What does it matter? We are here yet.”

The quiet tone of Siegmund moved her with a vivid passion of grief. She felt she should lose him. Clasping him very closely, she burst into uncontrollable sobbing. He did not understand, but he did not interrupt her. He merely held her very close, while he looked through her shaking hair at the motionless stars. He bent his head to hers, he sought her face with his lips, heavy with pity. She grew a little quieter. He felt his cheek all wet with her tears, and, between his cheek and hers, the ravelled 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 face suddenly and pressed on him a fierce kiss.

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

An intense silence came over everything. Helena almost expected to hear the stars moving, everything below was so still. She had no idea what Siegmund