He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild, questioning eyes, and then he realized that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence?” he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.

Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a gray shawl, which he had carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the gray parcel a little moaning cry, and from from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled dimpled fists.

“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice, reproachfully.

“Have I, though?” the man answered penitently; “I didn’t go for to do it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the gray shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron, all bespoke a mother’s care. The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her companion.

“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the tousy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, showing the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s mother?”

“Mother’s gone. I guess you‘ll see her before long.”

“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she most always did if she was just goin’ over to auntie’s for tea, and now she‘s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain‘t there no water nor nothing to eat?”

“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You‘ll just need to be patient awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up ag‘in me like that, and then you’ll feel bullier. It ain‘t easy to talk when your lips is like leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s that you‘ve got?”

“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home I’ll give them to brother Bob.”

“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently. “You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though — you remember when we left the river?”

But Ursula had got her hand free. She turned to Birkin with a quick, almost jeering: ‘Good–bye,’ and she was opening the door before he had time to do it for her.

When she got outside the house she ran down the road in fury and agitation. It was strange, the unreasoning rage and violence Hermione roused in her, by her very presence. Ursula knew she gave herself away to the other woman, she knew she looked ill–bred, uncouth, exaggerated. But she did not care. She only ran up the road, lest she should go back and jeer in the faces of the two she had left behind. For they outraged her.

Next day Birkin sought Ursula out. It happened to be the half–day at the Grammar School. He appeared towards the end of the morning, and asked her, would she drive with him in the afternoon. She consented. But her face was closed and unresponding, and his heart sank.

The afternoon was fine and dim. He was driving the motor–car, and she sat beside him. But still her face was closed against him, unresponding. When she became like this, like a wall against him, his heart contracted.

His life now seemed so reduced, that he hardly cared any more. At moments it seemed to him he did not care a straw whether Ursula or Hermione or anybody else existed or did not exist. Why bother! Why strive for a coherent, satisfied life? Why not drift on in a series of accidents–like a picaresque novel? Why not? Why bother about human relationships? Why take them seriously–male or female? Why form any serious connections at all? Why not be casual, drifting along, taking all for what it was worth?

And yet, still, he was damned and doomed to the old effort at serious living.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘what I bought.’ The car was running along a broad white road, between autumn trees.

He gave her a little bit of screwed–up paper. She took it and opened it.

‘How lovely,’ she cried.

She examined the gift.

‘How perfectly lovely!’ she cried again. ‘But why do you give them me?’ She put the question offensively.

His face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders slightly.

‘I wanted to,’ he said, coolly.

‘But why? Why should you?’

‘Am I called on to find reasons?’ he asked.

There was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been screwed up in the paper.

‘I think they are BEAUTIFUL,’ she said, ‘especially this. This is wonderful–’

It was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies.

‘You like that best?’ he said.

‘I think I do.’

‘I like the sapphire,’ he said.

‘This?’

It was a rose–shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is lovely.’ She held it in the light. ‘Yes, perhaps it IS the best–’

‘The blue–’ he said.

‘Yes, wonderful–’