'It will make him ill,' she whispered to herself, and she bent over to
smell the hot hair. She noticed where the sun was scalding his forehead.
She felt very pitiful and helpless when she saw his brow becoming
inflamed with the sun-scalding.
Turning weariedly away, she sought relief in the landscape. But the sea
was glittering unbearably, like a scaled dragon wreathing. The houses of
Freshwater slept, as cattle sleep motionless in the hollow valley. Green
Farringford on the slope, was drawn over with a shadow of heat and
sleep. In the bay below the hill the sea was hot and restless. Helena
was sick with sunshine and the restless glitter of water.
'"And there shall be no more sea,"' she quoted to herself, she knew not
wherefrom.
'No more sea, no more anything,' she thought dazedly, as she sat in the
midst of this fierce welter of sunshine. It seemed to her as if all the
lightness of her fancy and her hope were being burned away in this
tremendous furnace, leaving her, Helena, like a heavy piece of slag
seamed with metal. She tried to imagine herself resuming the old
activities, the old manner of living.
'It is impossible,' she said; 'it is impossible! What shall I be when I
come out of this? I shall not come out, except as metal to be cast in
another shape. No more the same Siegmund, no more the same life. What
will become of us--what will happen?' She was roused from these semi-delirious speculations in the sun furnace
by Siegmund's waking. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and looked
smiling at Helena.
'It is worth while to sleep,' said he, 'for the sake of waking like
this. I was dreaming of huge ice-crystals.' She smiled at him. He seemed unconscious of fate, happy and strong. She
smiled upon him almost in condescension.
'I should like to realize your dream,' she said. 'This is terrible!' They went to the cliff's edge, to receive the cool up-flow of air from
the water. She drank the travelling freshness eagerly with her face, and
put forward her sunburnt arms to be refreshed.
'It is really a very fine sun,' said Siegmund lightly. 'I feel as if I
were almost satisfied with heat.' Helena felt the chagrin of one whose wretchedness must go unperceived,
while she affects a light interest in another's pleasure. This time,
when Siegmund 'failed to follow her', as she put it, she felt she must
follow him.
'You are having your satisfaction complete this journey,' she said,
smiling; 'even a sufficiency of me.' 'Ay!' said Siegmund drowsily. 'I think I am. I think this is about
perfect, don't you?' She laughed.