Page:Women in Love, Lawrence, 1920.djvu/389

Rh 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 senses 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."