“The sea brought it all the way from the mainland without breaking it,” said Helena, with the interesting intonation some folk use to children. The girl looked at her. “The waves put it out of their lap on to some seaweed with such careful fingers—” The child’s eyes brightened. “The tide-line is full of treasures,” said Helena, smiling. The child answered her smile a little. Siegmund had walked away. “What beautiful eyes she had!” said Helena. “Yes,” he replied. She looked up at him. He felt her searching him tenderly with her eyes. But he could not look back at her. She took his hand and kissed it, knowing he was thinking of his own youngest child. VIII 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.”