Finally anxiety forces itself upon them in the shape of desperate bands of armed men who break into the closed world around their cave. From this point on their isolation is ended and the anxiety is no longer just in their minds: it is stalking them just as surely as Hugh had earlier stalked the deer. This time there can be no escape: they must face it. Again it is Terry who does so most fully, even though she knows it is the beginning of the end for them. As they are drawn in to the fighting they respond differently. Hugh finds a ‘fierce exultation’ in it, while Terry finds comfort in helping one of the wounded men even though he dies.

Having lived for so long on the edges of the human world this renewed involvement releases them both from the inner anxieties that had begun to destroy them. They decide to leave the cave and go back to the world of men, whatever might await them, a decision which liberates them from doubt and fear because once more they feel in control of their own lives. This does not negate their experience because it is only through living as they have done that they have been able to break through to this new sense of being, the unselfish acceptance of a responsibility to others, an acknowledgement that however misguided the rest of humanity might be they are still a part of it.

[The cave] sheltered us and brought us to know ourselves and chose the only way of peace …. I am grateful for that harsh instruction because it taught us wisdom and gave us happiness beyond fear and thought of our own safety.

With this sense of renewed involvement and hope the novel could have ended, but Macpherson’s austere vision takes the story further, and the book ends with the deaths of Terry and Hugh. The ending is harrowing but inevitable. They had known from the start that they would probably not survive: ‘we’ll never escape, we’ll starve and rot in this den, this hole in the rock’. The tragedy of it is that death is the price they must pay for their new self-awareness. As Terry dies first it is particularly harrowing for Hugh. Losing Terry tests him to the limits of his being because she has comforted and supported him from the start. Terry’s faith was always stronger than Hugh’s and with her death Hugh’s faith in their new awareness, his belief in the value of their life together, is given the ultimate test.