sand and the line of foam broken by black rocks, and over all the gulls, stirring round like froth on a pot, screaming in chorus.
She watched the beautiful birds, heard the pleading of Siegmund, and she thrilled with pleasure, toying with his keen anguish.
Helena came smiling to Siegmund, saying:
“They look so fine down there.”
He fastened his hands upon her, as a relief from his pain. He was filled with a keen, strong anguish of dread, like a presentiment. She laughed as he gripped her.
They went searching for a way of descent. At last Siegmund inquired of the coastguard the nearest way down the cliff. He was pointed to the “Path of the Hundred Steps.”
“When is a hundred not a hundred?” he said sceptically, as they descended the dazzling white chalk. There were sixty-eight steps. Helena laughed at his exactitude.
“It must be a love of round numbers,” he said.
“No doubt,” she laughed. He took the thing so seriously.
“Or of exaggeration,” he added.
There was a shelving beach of warm white sand, bleached soft as velvet. A sounding of gulls filled the dark recesses of the headland; a low chatter of shingle came from where the easy water was breaking; a confused, shell-like murmur of the sea between the folded cliffs. Siegmund and Helena lay side by side upon the dry sand, small as two resting birds, while thousands of gulls whirled in a white-flaked storm above them, and the great cliffs towered beyond, and high up over the cliffs the multitudinous clouds were
