`I don't know, I'm sure,' he replied. `But I do think you've got to find some way of resolving the situation -- not because you want to, but because you've got to, otherwise you're done. The whole of everything, and yourself included, is just on the point of caving in, and you are just holding it up with your hands. Well, it's a situation that obviously can't continue. You can't stand holding the roof up with your hands, for ever. You know that sooner or later you'll have to let go. Do you understand what I mean? And so something's got to be done, or there's a universal collapse -- as far as you yourself are concerned.'

He shifted slightly on the hearth, crunching a cinder under his heel. He looked down at it. Gudrun was aware of the beautiful old marble panels of the fireplace, swelling softly carved, round him and above him. She felt as if she were caught at last by fate, imprisoned in some horrible and fatal trap.

`But what can be done?' she murmured humbly. `You must use me if I can be of any help at all -- but how can I? I don't see how I can help you.'

He looked down at her critically.

`I don't want you to help,' he said, slightly irritated, `because there's nothing to be done. I only want sympathy, do you see: I want somebody I can talk to sympathetically. That eases the strain. And there is nobody to talk to sympathetically. That's the curious thing. There is nobody. There's Rupert Birkin. But then he isn't sympathetic, he wants to dictate. And that is no use whatsoever.'

She was caught in a strange snare. She looked down at her hands.

Then there was the sound of the door softly opening. Gerald started. He was chagrined. It was his starting that really startled Gudrun. Then he went forward, with quick, graceful, intentional courtesy.

`Oh, mother!' he said. `How nice of you to come down. How are you?'

The elderly woman, loosely and bulkily wrapped in a purple gown, came forward silently, slightly hulked, as usual. Her son was at her side. He pushed her up a chair, saying `You know Miss Brangwen, don't you?'

The mother glanced at Gudrun indifferently.

`Yes,' she said. Then she turned her wonderful, forget-me-not blue eyes up to her son, as she slowly sat down in the chair he had brought her.

`I came to ask you about your father,' she said, in her rapid, scarcely-audible voice. `I didn't know you had company.'

`No? Didn't Winifred tell you? Miss Brangwen stayed to dinner, to make us a little more lively --'

Mrs Crich turned slowly round to Gudrun, and looked at her, but with unseeing eyes.

`I'm afraid it would be no treat to her.' Then she turned again to her son. `Winifred tells me the doctor had something to say about your father. What is it?'

`Only that the pulse is very weak -- misses altogether a good many times -- so that he might not last the night out,' Gerald replied.

Mrs Crich sat perfectly impassive, as if she had not heard. Her bulk seemed hunched in the chair, her fair hair hung slack over her ears. But her skin was clear and fine, her hands, as she sat with them forgotten and folded, were quite beautiful, full of potential energy. A great mass of energy seemed decaying up in that silent, hulking form.