she repeated. ‘I have asked myself a thousand times.’

‘And don’t you know?’

‘Yes, I think I do. I think my coming back home was just RECULER POUR MIEUX SAUTER.’

And she looked with a long, slow look of knowledge at Ursula.

‘I know!’ cried Ursula, looking slightly dazzled and falsified, and as if she did NOT know. ‘But where can one jump to?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ said Gudrun, somewhat superbly. ‘If one jumps over the edge, one is bound to land somewhere.’

‘But isn’t it very risky?’ asked Ursula.

A slow mocking smile dawned on Gudrun’s