violation of a dark, uncreated, hostile world. But all the time her heart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: ‘I want to go back, I want to go away, I want not to know it, not to know that this exists.’ Yet she must go forward.

Ursula could feel her suffering.

‘You hate this, don’t you?’ she asked.

‘It bewilders me,’ stammered Gudrun.

‘You won’t stay long,’ replied Ursula.

And Gudrun went along, grasping at release.

They drew away from the colliery region, over the curve of the hill, into the purer country of the other side, towards Willey Green. Still the faint glamour of