running over
her cheeks, her mouth was working strangely.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

After a moment's struggle with her voice.

"It is so beautiful," she said, looking at the glowing,
beautiful land. It was so beautiful, so perfect, and so
unsullied.

He too realized what England would be in a few hours'
time--a blind, sordid, strenuous activity, all for nothing,
fuming with dirty smoke and running trains and groping in the
bowels of the earth, all for nothing. A ghastliness came over
him.

He looked at Ursula. Her face was wet with tears, very
bright, like a transfiguration in the refulgent light. Nor was
his the hand to wipe away the burning, bright tears. He stood
apart, overcome by a cruel ineffectuality.

Gradually a great, helpless sorrow was rising in him. But as
yet he was fighting it away, he was struggling for his own life.
He became very quiet and unaware of the things about him,
awaiting, as it were, her judgment on him.

They returned to Nottingham, the time of her examination
came. She must go to London. But she would not stay with him in
an hotel. She would go to a quiet little pension near the
British Museum.

Those quiet residential squares of London made a great
impression on her mind. They were very complete. Her mind seemed
imprisoned in their quietness. Who was going to liberate
her?

In the evening, her practical examinations being over, he
went with her to dinner at one of the hotels down the river,
near Richmond. It was golden and beautiful, with yellow water
and white and scarlet-striped boat-awnings, and blue shadows
under the trees.

"When shall we be married?" he asked her, quietly, simply, as
if it were a mere question of comfort.

She watched the changing pleasure-traffic of the river. He
looked at her golden, puzzled museau. The knot gathered
in his throat.

"I don't know," she said.

A hot grief gripped his throat.

"Why don't you know--don't you want to be married?" he
asked her.

Her head turned slowly, her face, puzzled, like a boy's face,
expressionless because she was trying to think, looked towards
his face. She did not see him, because she was pre-occupied. She
did not quite know what she was going to say.

"I don't think I want to be married," she said, and her
naive, troubled, puzzled eyes rested a moment on his, then
travelled away, pre-occupied.

"Do you mean never, or not just yet?" he asked.

The knot in his throat grew harder, his face w