Ursula came straight up to her.

‘Gudrun!’ she cried, the tears running down her cheeks. And she took her sister in her arms. Gudrun hid her face on Ursula’s shoulder, but still she could not escape the cold devil of irony that froze her soul.

‘Ha, ha!’ she thought, ‘this is the right behaviour.’

But she could not weep, and the sight of her cold, pale, impassive face soon stopped the fountain of Ursula’s tears. In a few moments, the sisters had nothing to say to each other.

‘Was it very vile to be dragged back here again?’ Gudrun asked at length.

Ursula looked up in some bewilderment.

‘I never thought of it,’