Women in Love

He was not quite up these stairs when he heard a quick running of feet

below, the outer door was closed and locked, he heard Ursula's voice,

then the father's sleepy exclamation. He pressed on swiftly to the

upper landing.

Again a door was ajar, a room was empty. Feeling his way forward, with

the tips of his fingers, travelling rapidly, like a blind man, anxious

lest Ursula should come upstairs, he found another door. There, with

his preternaturally fine sense alert, he listened. He heard someone

moving in bed. This would be she.

Softly now, like one who has only one sense, the tactile sense, he

turned the latch. It clicked. He held still. The bed-clothes rustled.

His heart did not beat. Then again he drew the latch back, and very

gently pushed the door. It made a sticking noise as it gave.

'Ursula?' said Gudrun's voice, frightened. He quickly opened the door

and pushed it behind him.

'Is it you, Ursula?' came Gudrun's frightened voice. He heard her

sitting up in bed. In another moment she would scream.

'No, it's me,' he said, feeling his way towards her. 'It is I, Gerald.' She sat motionless in her bed in sheer astonishment. She was too

astonished, too much taken by surprise, even to be afraid.

'Gerald!' she echoed, in blank amazement. He had found his way to the

bed, and his outstretched hand touched her warm breast blindly. She

shrank away.

'Let me make a light,' she said, springing out.

He stood perfectly motionless. He heard her touch the match-box, he

heard her fingers in their movement. Then he saw her in the light of a

match, which she held to the candle. The light rose in the room, then

sank to a small dimness, as the flame sank down on the candle, before

it mounted again.

She looked at him, as he stood near the other side of the bed. His cap

was pulled low over his brow, his black overcoat was buttoned close up

to his chin. His face was strange and luminous. He was inevitable as a

supernatural being. When she had seen him, she knew. She knew there was

something fatal in the situation, and she must accept it. Yet she must

challenge him.

'How did you come up?' she asked.

'I walked up the stairs--the door was open.' She looked at him.

'I haven't closed this door, either,' he said. She walked swiftly

across the room, and closed her door, softly, and locked it. Then she

came back.

She was wonderful, with startled eyes and flushed cheeks, and her plait

of hair rather short and thick down her back, and her long, fine white

night-dress falling to her feet.