“The old life will take me up, I suppose,” he said.
There was a pause.
“I think, dear,” she said, “I have done wrong.”
“Good Lord—you have not!” he replied sharply, pressing back his head to look at her, for the first time.
“I shall have to send you back to Beatrice and the babies—to-morrow—as you are now….”
“ ‘Take no thought for the morrow.’ Be quiet, Helena!” he exclaimed as the reality bit him. He sat up suddenly.
“Why?” she asked, afraid.
“Why!” he repeated. He remained sitting, leaning forward on the sand, staring intently at Helena. She looked back in fear at him. The moment terrified her, and she lost courage.
With a fluttered motion she put her hand on his, which was pressed hard on the sand as he leaned forward. At once he relaxed his intensity, laughed, then became tender.
Helena yielded herself like a forlorn child to his arms, and there lay, half crying, whilst he smoothed her brow with his fingers, and grains of sand fell from his palm on her cheek. She shook with dry, withered sobs, as a child does when it snatches itself away from the lancet of the doctor and hides in the mother’s bosom, refusing to be touched.
But she knew the morrow was coming, whether or not, and she cowered down on his breast. She was wild with fear of the parting and the subsequent days. They must drink, after to-morrow, separate cups. She was filled with vague terror of what it would be. The
