heedlessly on winged feet. There was no train, she must walk on to the junction. As she went through the darkness, she began to cry, and she wept bitterly, with a dumb, heart-broken, child’s anguish, all the way on the road, and in the train. Time passed unheeded and unknown, she did not know where she was, nor what was taking place. Only she wept from fathomless depths of hopeless, hopeless grief, the terrible grief of a child, that knows no extenuation.

Yet her voice had the same defensive brightness as she spoke to Birkin’s landlady at the door.

‘Good evening! Is Mr Birkin in? Can I see him?’

‘Yes, he’s in. He’s in his study.’

Ursula slipped past the woman. His door opened. He had heard her voice.