e they had left their clothing, running in the
dark, soft wind, utterly naked, as naked as the downs
themselves. Her hair was loose and blew about her shoulders, she
ran swiftly, wearing sandals when she set off on the long run to
the dew-pond.

In the round dew-pond the stars were untroubled. She ventured
softly into the water, grasping at the stars with her hands.

And then suddenly she started back, running swiftly. He was
there, beside her, but only on sufferance. He was a screen for
her fears. He served her. She took him, she clasped him,
clenched him close, but her eyes were open looking at the stars,
it was as if the stars were lying with her and entering the
unfathomable darkness of her womb, fathoming her at last. It was
not him.

The dawn came. They stood together on a high place, an
earthwork of the stone-age men, watching for the light. It came
over the land. But the land was dark. She watched a pale rim on
the sky, away against the darkened land. The darkness became
bluer. A little wind was running in from the sea behind. It
seemed to be running to the pale rift of the dawn. And she and
he darkly, on an outpost of the darkness, stood watching for the
dawn.

The light grew stronger, gushing up against the dark sapphire
of the transparent night. The light grew stronger, whiter, then
over it hovered a flush of rose. A flush of rose, and then
yellow, pale, new-created yellow, the whole quivering and
poising momentarily over the fountain on the sky's rim.

The rose hovered and quivered, burned, fused to flame, to a
transient red, while the yellow urged out in great waves, thrown
from the ever-increasing fountain, great waves of yellow
flinging into the sky, scattering its spray over the darkness,
which became bluer and bluer, paler, till soon it would itself
be a radiance, which had been darkness.

The sun was coming. There was a quivering, a powerful
terrifying swim of molten light. Then the molten source itself
surged forth, revealing itself. The sun was in the sky, too
powerful to look at.

And the ground beneath lay so still, so peaceful. Only now
and again a cock crew. Otherwise, from the distant yellow hills
to the pine trees at the foot of the downs, everything was newly
washed into being, in a flood of new, golden creation.

It was so unutterably still and perfect with promise, the
golden-lighted, distinct land, that Ursula's soul rocked and
wept. Suddenly he glanced at her. The tears were