‘No,’ she said. ‘Some things you don’t understand, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Helen agreed. ‘So now you can go ahead and be a person on your own account,’ she added.

The vision of her own personality, of herself as a real everlasting thing, different from anything else, unmergeable, like the sea or the wind, flashed into Rachel’s mind, and she became profoundly excited at the thought of living.