~VIII~

One sunny November morning, when the strain had reached a pitch that
made repression almost unmanageable, she came to an impulsive decision,
and obeyed it. Her husband had again gone out with luncheon for the day.
She took adventure in her hands and followed him. The power of
seeing-clear was strong upon her, forcing her up to some unnatural level
of understanding. To stay indoors and wait inactive for his return
seemed suddenly impossible. She meant to know what he knew, feel what he
felt, put herself in his place. She would dare the fascination of the
Forest--share it with him. It was greatly daring; but it would give her
greater understanding how to help and save him and therefore greater
Power. She went upstairs a moment first to pray.

In a thick, warm skirt, and wearing heavy boots--those walking boots she
used with him upon the mountains about Seillans--she left the cottage by
the back way and turned towards the Forest. She could not actually
follow him, for he had started off an hour before and she knew not
exactly his direction. What was so urgent in her was the wish to be with
him in the woods, to walk beneath leafless branches just as he did: to
be there when he was there, even though not together. For it had come to
her that she might thus share with him for once this horrible mighty
life and breathing of the trees he loved. In winter, he had said, they
needed him particularly, and winter now was coming. Her love must bring
her something of what he felt himself--the huge attraction, the suction
and the pull of all the trees. Thus, in some vicarious fashion, she
might share, though unknown to himself, this very thing that was taking
him away from her. She might thus even lessen its attack upon himself.

The impulse came to her clairvoyantly, and she obeyed without a sign of