The Trespasser

The way home lay across country, through deep little lanes where the

late foxgloves sat seriously, like sad hounds; over open downlands,

rough with gorse and ling, and through pocketed hollows of bracken

and trees.

They came to a small Roman Catholic church in the fields. There the

carved Christ looked down on the dead whose sleeping forms made mounds

under the coverlet. Helena's heart was swelling with emotion. All the

yearning and pathos of Christianity filled her again.

The path skirted the churchyard wall, so that she had on the one hand

the sleeping dead, and on the other Siegmund, strong and vigorous, but

walking in the old, dejected fashion. She felt a rare tenderness and

admiration for him. It was unusual for her to be so humble-minded, but

this evening she felt she must minister to him, and be submissive.

She made him stop to look at the graves. Suddenly, as they stood, she

kissed him, clasped him fervently, roused him till his passion burned

away his heaviness, and he seemed tipped with life, his face glowing as

if soon he would burst alight. Then she was satisfied, and could laugh.

As they went through the fir copse, listening to the birds like a family

assembled and chattering at home in the evening, listening to the light

swish of the wind, she let Siegmund predominate; he set the swing of

their motion; she rested on him like a bird on a swaying bough.

They argued concerning the way. Siegmund, as usual, submitted to her.

They went quite wrong. As they retraced their steps, stealthily, through

a poultry farm whose fowls were standing in forlorn groups, once more

dismayed by evening, Helena's pride battled with her new subjugation to

Siegmund. She walked head down, saying nothing. He also was silent, but

his heart was strong in him. Somewhere in the distance a band was

playing 'The Watch on the Rhine'.

As they passed the beeches and were near home, Helena said, to try him,

and to strike a last blow for her pride: 'I wonder what next Monday will bring us.' 'Quick curtain,' he answered joyously. He was looking down and smiling

at her with such careless happiness that she loved him. He was wonderful

to her. She loved him, was jealous of every particle of him that evaded

her. She wanted to sacrifice to him, make herself a burning altar to

him, and she wanted to possess him.

The hours that would be purely their own came too slowly for her.

That night she met his passion with love. It was not his passion she

wanted, actually. But she desired that he should want _her_ madly, and

that he should have all--everything. It was a wonderful night to him. It

restored in him the full 'will to live'. But she felt it destroyed her.

Her soul seemed blasted.