'Why am I doing this?' Helena asked herself.
The three friends, washed, dressed, and breakfasted. It was too hot to
rest in the house, so they trudged to the coast, silently, each feeling
in an ill humour.
When Helena was really rested, she took great pleasure in Tintagel. In
the first place, she found that the cove was exactly, almost identically
the same as the Walhalla scene in _Walküre_; in the second place,
_Tristan_ was here, in the tragic country filled with the flowers of a
late Cornish summer, an everlasting reality; in the third place, it was
a sea of marvellous, portentous sunsets, of sweet morning baths, of
pools blossomed with life, of terrible suave swishing of foam which
suggested the Anadyomene. In sun it was the enchanted land of divided
lovers. Helena for ever hummed fragments of _Tristan_. As she stood on
the rocks she sang, in her little, half-articulate way, bits of Isolde's
love, bits of Tristan's anguish, to Siegmund.
She had not received her letter on Sunday. That had not very much
disquieted her, though she was disappointed. On Monday she was miserable
because of Siegmund's silence, but there was so much of enchantment in
Tintagel, and Olive and Louisa were in such high spirits, that she
forgot most whiles.
On Monday night, towards two o'clock, there came a violent storm of
thunder and lightning. Louisa started up in bed at the first clap,
waking Helena. The room palpitated with white light for two seconds; the
mirror on the dressing-table glared supernaturally. Louisa clutched her
friend. All was dark again, the thunder clapping directly.
'There, wasn't that lovely!' cried Louisa, speaking of the lightning.
'Oo, wasn't it magnificent!--glorious!' The door clicked and opened: Olive entered in her long white nightgown.
She hurried to the bed.
'I say, dear!' she exclaimed, 'may I come into the fold? I prefer the
shelter of your company, dear, during this little lot.' 'Don't you like it?' cried Louisa. 'I think it's _lovely_--lovely!' There came another slash of lightning. The night seemed to open and
shut. It was a pallid vision of a ghost-world between the clanging
shutters of darkness. Louisa and Olive clung to each other
spasmodically.
'There!' exclaimed the former, breathless. 'That was fine! Helena, did
you see that?' She clasped ecstatically the hand of her friend, who was lying down.
Helena's answer was extinguished by the burst of thunder.
'There's no accounting for tastes,' said Olive, taking a place in the
bed. 'I can't say I'm struck on lightning. What about you, Helena?' 'I'm not struck yet,' replied Helena, with a sarcastic attempt at a
jest.