She pleaded with him now: “I can’t go back to it, Louis, I can’t. Aunt Lavvy’s there, at Grey Stone, in the house, in my bed. And Doug.... I purposely left him easy clues to pick up my elopement, so that he’d have no trouble in getting rid of me. That’s the ridiculous part of it. If I went back--tomorrow--I’d have to let him suppose that when it came to it, I had cared too much for him and too little for you--I should have to be repentant and ask him to be magnanimous and forgive me. And he would. After a fierce struggle. All the rest of my life I’d have to live with Doug and be forgiven. And never be able to laugh out loud. And never to tell him how funny it was....” After a pause: “Of course I’m not going back,” Ursula decided in perfectly normal and decided tones. As though Louis’ silence had been a powerful attack, she met it with the fleet retort: “I was able to give up the room years ago, because then I believed that life would somehow be gleaming and lit up afterwards, as a sort of reward. Transfigured. But I know now, I _know_ it’s just the same, only beastlier. Virtue isn’t its own reward, even spiritually. How can I go back knowing that? You wouldn’t ask it, Louis?” “Yes. From you. That would be a delightfully cosy pink-wadding to the spirit, wouldn’t it, to be sure of abstract heaven after sacrifice?” “If I went through it, Christine can.” “There was no one then who had proved Doug, and could warn you.” “I want the room again--or room again--as much as she does. A thousand times more.” “So you’d take it at the expense of hers? Pirate?--you’re worse; you’re a robber.” “My creed is to fling off our mistakes and start again. It’s tameness to abide by them.” “Your creed doesn’t count while you’re concerned with Christine, and her--symbolically--white walls.” “I’m _not_ concerned with them?” in a final passion of revolt. “It’s not my responsibility.” “Yes, it is.” And he added grimly: “God shares responsibility with those who are privileged to see what they’re about.” Ursula began softly to cry. And Louis, aware that the tussle was over, mercifully turned his back on her, and gazed out of the window.... His mouth was puckered to a grimace, and his sloe-eyes were unspeakably tender. “We must look grotesquely like an Academy picture called ‘Renunciation,’” was one of the irrelevant thoughts which drifted through his mind, dismally empty of any consolation for himself--or her. “One of those silly problem pictures to make the public wonder which of the two is renouncing and which isn’t....” Then Ursula’s voice startled him: “Come and talk it over!” Ursula’s voice, clear and merry. “You, of all people, are a queer Figure of Light to have been sent to guide me through my darkness, aren’t you, Louis?”