ed by hearing the bell ring, away in the kitchen, the
children came scudding along the passage in delicious alarm.

'Ursula, there's somebody.'

'I know. Don't be silly,' she replied. She too was startled, almost
frightened. She dared hardly go to the door.

Birkin stood on the threshold, his rain-coat turned up to his ears. He
had come now, now she was gone far away. She was aware of the rainy
night behind him.

'Oh is it you?' she said.

'I am glad you are at home,' he said in a low voice, entering the
house.

'They are all gone to church.'

He took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him
round the corner.

'Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,' said Ursula. 'Mother will
be back soon, and she'll be disappointed if you're not in bed.'

The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkin
and Ursula went into the drawing-room.

The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous
delicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched
from a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with
light.

'What have you been doing all day?' he asked her.

'Only sitting about,' she said.

He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from
him. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent
in the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, he
ought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to
move. But he was DE TROP, her mood was absent and separate.

Then there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outside
the door, softly, with self-excited timidity:

'Ursula! Ursula!'

She rose and opened the door. On the threshold stood the two children
in their long nightgowns, with wide-eyed, angelic faces. They were
being very good for the moment, playing the role perfectly of two
obedient children.

'Shall you take us to bed!' said Billy, in a loud whisper.

'Why you ARE angels tonight,' she said softly. 'Won't you come and say
good-night to Mr Birkin?'

The children merged shyly into the room, on bare feet. Billy's face was
wide and grinning, but there was a great solemnity of being good in his
round blue eyes. Dora, peeping from the floss of her fair hair, hung
back like some tiny Dryad, that has no soul.

'Will you say good-night to me?' asked Birkin, in a voice that was
strangely soft and smooth. Dora drifted away at once, like a leaf
l