He sat motionless. Then he reached more music, and there was a rushing sound of air, then a long, emphatic trumpet-note of the organ, as he laid his hands on the keys. Ursula turned and went away. He tried to give himself again to the organ. But he could not. He could not get back. All the time a sort of string was tugging, tugging him elsewhere, miserably. So that when he came into the house after choir-practice his face was dark and his heart black. He said nothing however, until all the younger children were in bed. Ursula, however, knew what was brewing. At length he asked: “Where’s that letter?” She gave it to him. He sat looking at it. “You are requested to call at the above offices on Thursday next——” It was a cold, official notice to Ursula herself and had nothing to do with him. So! She existed now as a separate social individual. It was for her to answer this note, without regard to him. He had even no right to interfere. His heart was hard and angry. “You had to do it behind our backs, had you?” he said, with a sneer. And her heart leapt with hot pain. She knew she was free—she had broken away from him. He was beaten. “You said, ‘let her try,’” she retorted, almost apologizing to him. He did not hear. He sat looking at the letter. “Education Office, Kingston-on-Thames”—and then the typewritten “Miss Ursula Brangwen, Yew Tree Cottage, Cossethay.” It was all so complete and so final. He could not but feel the new position Ursula held, as recipient of that letter. It was an iron in his soul. “Well,” he said at length, “you’re not going.” Ursula started and could find no words to clamour her revolt. “If you think you’re going dancin’ off to th’ other side of London, you’re mistaken.” “Why not?” she cried, at once hard fixed in her will to go. “That’s why not,” he said. And there was silence till Mrs. Brangwen came downstairs. “Look here, Anna,” he said, handing her the letter. She put back her head, seeing a typewritten letter, anticipating trouble from the outside world. There was the curious, sliding motion of her eyes, as if she shut off her sentient, maternal self, and a kind of hard trance, meaningless, took its place. Thus, meaningless, she glanced over the letter, careful not to take it in. She apprehended the contents with her callous, superficial mind. Her feeling self was shut down. “What post is it?” she asked. “She wants to go and be a teacher in Kingston-on-Thames, at fifty pounds a year.” “Oh, indeed.” The mother spoke as if it were a hostile fact concerning some stranger. She would have let her go, out of callousness. Mrs. Brangwen would begin to grow up again only with her youngest child. Her eldest girl was in the way now. “She’s not going all that distance,” said the father. “I have to go where they want me,” cried Ursula. “And it’s a good place to go to.” “What do you know about the place?” said her father harshly.