gripping, its partial concealment so abominable. Then, out of the dim
confusion, she grasped one thought and saw it stand quite clear before
her eyes. She found difficulty in clothing it in words, but its meaning
perhaps was this: That cedar stood in their life for something friendly;
its downfall meant disaster; a sense of some protective influence about
the cottage, and about her husband in particular, was thereby weakened.

"Why do you fear the big winds so?" he had asked her several days
before, after a particularly boisterous day; and the answer she gave
surprised her while she gave it. One of those heads poked up
unconsciously, and let slip the truth.

"Because, David, I feel they--bring the Forest with them," she faltered.
"They blow something from the trees--into the mind--into the house."

He looked at her keenly for a moment.

"That must be why I love them then," he answered. "They blow the souls
of the trees about the sky like clouds."

The conversation dropped. She had never heard him talk in quite that way
before.

And another time, when he had coaxed her to go with him down one of the
nearer glades, she asked why he took the small hand-axe with him, and
what he wanted it for.

"To cut the ivy that clings to the trunks and takes their life away," he
said.