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.