She had written to him on Monday. If she should receive no answer by Wednesday morning she would return to London. As she was deciding this she went to sleep.
The next day passed without news. Helena was in a state of distress. Her wistfulness touched the other two women very keenly. Louisa waited upon her, was very tender and solicitous. Olive, who was becoming painful by reason of her unsatisfied curiosity, had to be told in part of the state of affairs.
Helena looked up a train. She was quite sure by this time that something fatal awaited her.
The next morning she bade her friends a temporary good-bye, saying she would return in the evening. Immediately the train had gone, Louisa rushed into the little waiting-room of the station and wept. Olive shed tears for sympathy and self-pity. She pitied herself that she should be let in for so dismal a holiday. Louisa suddenly stopped crying and sat up:
“Oh, I know I’m a pig, dear, am I not?” she exclaimed. “Spoiling your holiday. But I couldn’t help it, dear, indeed I could not.”
“My dear Lou!” cried Olive in tragic contralto. “Don’t refrain for my sake. The bargain’s made; we can’t help what’s in the bundle.”
The two unhappy women trudged the long miles back from the station to their lodging. Helena sat in the swinging express revolving the same thought like a prayer-wheel. It would be difficult to think of anything more trying than thus sitting motionless in the train, which itself is throbbing and bursting its heart with anxiety, while one waits hour after hour for the blow which falls nearer as the distance lessens. All the time Helena’s heart and her consciousness were with Siegmund in London, for she believed he was ill and needed her.
“Promise me,” she had said, “if ever I were sick and wanted you, you would come to me.”
“I would come to you from hell!” Siegmund had replied.
“And if you were ill—you would let me come to you?” she had added.