oneself, of
having transcended the old existence. How could he say "I" when he was
something new and unknown, not himself at all? This I, this old formula
of the age, was a dead letter.

In the new, superfine bliss, a peace superseding knowledge, there was
no I and you, there was only the third, unrealised wonder, the wonder
of existing not as oneself, but in a consummation of my being and of
her being in a new one, a new, paradisal unit regained from the
duality. Nor can I say 'I love you,' when I have ceased to be, and you
have ceased to be: we are both caught up and transcended into a new
oneness where everything is silent, because there is nothing to answer,
all is perfect and at one. Speech travels between the separate parts.
But in the perfect One there is perfect silence of bliss.

They were married by law on the next day, and she did as he bade her,
she wrote to her father and mother. Her mother replied, not her father.

She did not go back to school. She stayed with Birkin in his rooms, or
at the Mill, moving with him as he moved. But she did not see anybody,
save Gudrun and Gerald. She was all strange and wondering as yet, but
relieved as by dawn.

Gerald sat talking to her one afternoon in the warm study down at the
Mill. Rupert had not yet come home.

'You are happy?' Gerald asked her, with a smile.

'Very happy!' she cried, shrinking a little in her brightness.

'Yes, one can see it.'

'Can one?' cried Ursula in surprise.

He looked up at her with a communicative smile.

'Oh yes, plainly.'

She was pleased. She meditated a moment.

'And can you see that Rupert is happy as well?'

He lowered his eyelids, and looked aside.

'Oh yes,' he said.

'Really!'

'Oh yes.'

He was very quiet, as if it were something not to be talked about by
him. He seemed sad.

She was very sensitive to suggestion. She asked the question he wanted
her to ask.

'Why don't you be happy as well?' she said. 'You could be just the
same.'

He paused a moment.

'With Gudrun?' he asked.

'Yes!' she cried, her eyes glowing. But there was a strange tension, an
emphasis, as if they were asserting their wishes, against the truth.

'You think Gudrun would have me, and we should be happy?' he said.

'Yes, I'm SURE!' she cried.

Her eyes were round with delight. Yet underneath she was constrained,
she knew her own insistence.

'Oh, I'm SO glad,' she added.

He smiled.

'What makes you glad?' he said.

'For