"Sophie," he said softly, "you must remember, too, that in any case
between us and--and all that sort of thing--there is a great gulf fixed,
a gulf that cannot be crossed--er--while we are still in the body."

And hearing no reply, he satisfied himself that she was already asleep
and happy. But Mrs. Bittacy was not asleep. She heard the sentence, only
she said nothing because she felt her thought was better unexpressed.
She was afraid to hear the words in the darkness. The Forest outside was
listening and might hear them too--the Forest that was "roaring further
out."

And the thought was this: That gulf, of course, existed, but Sanderson
had somehow bridged it.

It was much later than night when she awoke out of troubled, uneasy
dreams and heard a sound that twisted her very nerves with fear. It
passed immediately with full waking, for, listen as she might, there was
nothing audible but the inarticulate murmur of the night. It was in her
dreams she heard it, and the dreams had vanished with it. But the sound
was recognizable, for it was that rushing noise that had come across the
lawn; only this time closer. Just above her face while she slept had
passed this murmur as of rustling branches in the very room, a sound of
foliage whispering. "A going in the tops of the mulberry trees," ran
through her mind. She had dreamed that she lay beneath a spreading tree
somewhere, a tree that whispered with ten thousand soft lips of green;
and the dream continued for a moment even after waking.

She sat up in bed and stared about her. The window was open at the top;
she saw the stars; the door, she remembered, was locked as usual; the