Helena worked 60 hours a week. On Saturday, the working day was supposed to finish at 12 noon but the workers always stayed late if an important order needed to be prepared. The linen company's first order had been to produce double damask linen tablecloths. These tablecloths were laid on the tables in the first class dining room on the Titanic.

The newly established company sometimes brought the workers in on Sundays to ensure orders were ready on time. On Sunday 14 April 1912, the workers including the half timers in all departments came in to finish an order for Argentina. Helena was preoccupied with a concert she was due to attend in the Grand Opera house that evening. She sang her way through the morning and into the afternoon and evening. At 2 pm, Helena realised that her work would not be complete by 6 pm and that there would be hardly any time between finishing in the mill and going to the concert. She kept her shoes on all day, ready to leave the minute her work was complete.

Margaret was tired before she even began. She stooped over the mop and half heartedly dabbled it along the top flight. She stopped to chastise a young half-timer who had only started and had not been warned about Margaret's stairs.

At 7 pm, Helena was finished. Already exhausted by excitement, heat and fasting, Helena went down the first flight. She tripped on the discarded mop, fell over the banister and down to the ground floor. Margaret heard the shrieking Helena and looked up to watch Helena falling. Margaret released her grip on the young boy and staggered down to the ground floor to discover that Helena was already dead. Helena's intention had been to leave the linen mill forever and establish herself as a singer. Of course she may never have succeeded as a singer and may have been destined to stay in the spinning room for years, reminiscing about the times she had sung on stage. Her death at 16 dashed those aspirations. There are reasonable, sensible men and women who say that Helena did not escape from the mill, that she still walks in that building.