The Trespasser

'Why am I doing this?' Helena asked herself.

The three friends, washed, dressed, and breakfasted. It was too hot to

rest in the house, so they trudged to the coast, silently, each feeling

in an ill humour.

When Helena was really rested, she took great pleasure in Tintagel. In

the first place, she found that the cove was exactly, almost identically

the same as the Walhalla scene in _Walküre_; in the second place,

_Tristan_ was here, in the tragic country filled with the flowers of a

late Cornish summer, an everlasting reality; in the third place, it was

a sea of marvellous, portentous sunsets, of sweet morning baths, of

pools blossomed with life, of terrible suave swishing of foam which

suggested the Anadyomene. In sun it was the enchanted land of divided

lovers. Helena for ever hummed fragments of _Tristan_. As she stood on

the rocks she sang, in her little, half-articulate way, bits of Isolde's

love, bits of Tristan's anguish, to Siegmund.

She had not received her letter on Sunday. That had not very much

disquieted her, though she was disappointed. On Monday she was miserable

because of Siegmund's silence, but there was so much of enchantment in

Tintagel, and Olive and Louisa were in such high spirits, that she

forgot most whiles.

On Monday night, towards two o'clock, there came a violent storm of

thunder and lightning. Louisa started up in bed at the first clap,

waking Helena. The room palpitated with white light for two seconds; the

mirror on the dressing-table glared supernaturally. Louisa clutched her

friend. All was dark again, the thunder clapping directly.

'There, wasn't that lovely!' cried Louisa, speaking of the lightning.

'Oo, wasn't it magnificent!--glorious!' The door clicked and opened: Olive entered in her long white nightgown.

She hurried to the bed.

'I say, dear!' she exclaimed, 'may I come into the fold? I prefer the

shelter of your company, dear, during this little lot.' 'Don't you like it?' cried Louisa. 'I think it's _lovely_--lovely!' There came another slash of lightning. The night seemed to open and

shut. It was a pallid vision of a ghost-world between the clanging

shutters of darkness. Louisa and Olive clung to each other

spasmodically.

'There!' exclaimed the former, breathless. 'That was fine! Helena, did

you see that?' She clasped ecstatically the hand of her friend, who was lying down.

Helena's answer was extinguished by the burst of thunder.

'There's no accounting for tastes,' said Olive, taking a place in the

bed. 'I can't say I'm struck on lightning. What about you, Helena?' 'I'm not struck yet,' replied Helena, with a sarcastic attempt at a

jest.