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?”
She stooped down and looked.
“It is half past one,” she said.