He hurried down the platform, wincing at every stride, from the memory
of Helena's last look of mute, heavy yearning. He gripped his fists till
they trembled; his thumbs were again closed under his fingers. Like a
picture on a cloth before him he still saw Helena's face, white,
rounded, in feature quite mute and expressionless, just made terrible by
the heavy eyes, pleading dumbly. He thought of her going on and on,
still at the carriage window looking out; all through the night rushing
west and west to the land of Isolde. Things began to haunt Siegmund like
a delirium. He knew not where he was hurrying. Always in front of him,
as on a cloth, was the face of Helena, while somewhere behind the cloth
was Cornwall, a far-off lonely place where darkness came on intensely.
Sometimes he saw a dim, small phantom in the darkness of Cornwall, very
far off. Then the face of Helena, white, inanimate as a mask, with heavy
eyes, came between again.

He was almost startled to find himself at home, in the porch of his
house. The door opened. He remembered to have heard the quick thud of
feet. It was Vera. She glanced at him, but said nothing. Instinctively
she shrank from him. He passed without noticing her. She stood on the
door-mat, fastening the door, striving to find something to say to him.

'You have been over an hour,' she said, still more troubled when she
found her voice shaking. She had no idea what alarmed her.