le that led again into the road was rubbed
shiny by the moleskins of the passing miners. Now the two girls were
going between some rows of dwellings, of the poorer sort. Women, their
arms folded over their coarse aprons, standing gossiping at the end of
their block, stared after the Brangwen sisters with that long,
unwearying stare of aborigines; children called out names.

Gudrun went on her way half dazed. If this were human life, if these
were human beings, living in a complete world, then what was her own
world, outside? She was aware of her grass-green stockings, her large
grass-green velour hat, her full soft coat, of a strong blue colour.
And she felt as if she were treading in the air, quite unstable, her
heart was contracted, as if at any minute she might be precipitated to
the ground. She was afraid.

She clung to Ursula, who, through long usage was inured to this
violation of a dark, uncreated, hostile world. But all the time her
heart was crying, as if in the midst of some ordeal: 'I want to go
back, I want to go away, I want not to know it, not to know that this
exists.' Yet she must go forward.

Ursula could feel her suffering.

'You hate this, don't you?' she asked.

'It bewilders me,' stammered Gudrun.

'You won't stay long,' replied Ursula.

And Gudrun went along, grasping at release.

They drew away from the colliery region, over the curve of the hill,
into the purer country of the other side, towards Willey Green. Still
the faint glamour of blackness persisted over the fields and the wooded
hills, and seemed darkly to gleam in the air. It was a spring day,
chill, with snatches of sunshine. Yellow celandines showed out from the
hedge-bottoms, and in the cottage gardens of Willey Green,
currant-bushes were breaking into leaf, and little flowers were coming
white on the grey alyssum that hung over the stone walls.

Turning, they passed down the high-road, that went between high banks
towards the church. There, in the lowest bend of the road, low under
the trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the
wedding. The daughter of the chief mine-owner of the district, Thomas
Crich, was getting married to a naval officer.

'Let us go back,' said Gudrun, swerving away. 'There are all those
people.'

And she hung wavering in the road.

'Never mind them,' said Ursula, 'they're all right. They all know me,
they don't matter.'

'But must we go through them?' asked Gudrun.

'T