“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.