The Trespasser

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.

'I promise,' he answered.

Now Helena believed he was ill, perhaps very ill, perhaps she only could

be of any avail. The miles of distance were like hot bars of iron across

her breast, and against them it was impossible to strive. The train did

what it could.

That day remains as a smear in the record of Helena's life. In it there

is no spacing of hours, no lettering of experience, merely a smear

of suspense.

Towards six o'clock she alighted, at Surbiton station, deciding that

this would be the quickest way of getting to Wimbledon. She paced the

platform slowly, as if resigned, but her heart was crying out at the

great injustice of delay. Presently the local train came in. She had

planned to buy a local paper at Wimbledon, and if from that source she

could learn nothing, she would go on to his house and inquire. She had

prearranged everything minutely.

After turning the newspaper several times she found what she sought.

'The funeral took place, at two o'clock today at Kingston Cemetery, of

----. Deceased was a professor of music, and had just returned from a

holiday on the South Coast....' The paragraph, in a bald twelve lines, told her everything.