On the top of the cliff they were between two bays, with darkening blue water on the left, and on the right gold water smoothing to the sun. Siegmund seemed to stand waist-deep in shadow, with his face bright and glowing. He was watching earnestly.
“I want to absorb it all,” he said.
When at last they turned away:
“Yes,” said Helena slowly; “one can recall the details, but never the atmosphere.”
He pondered a moment.
“How strange!” he said. I can recall the atmosphere, but not the detail. It is a moment to me, not a piece of scenery. I should say the picture was in me, not out there.”
Without troubling to understand—she was inclined to think it verbiage—she made a small sound of assent.
“That is why you want to go again to a place, and I don’t care so much, because I have it with me,” he concluded.
XI
They decided to find their way through the lanes to Alum Bay, and then, keeping the cross in sight, to return over the downs, with the moon-path broad on the water before them. For the moon was rising late. Twilight, however, rose more rapidly than they had anticipated. The lane twisted among meadows and wild lands and copses—a wilful little lane, quite incomprehensible. So they lost their distant landmark, the white cross.