tears, yet with a coldness as of ice upon her very flesh. She stared,
unseeing, about her. That horror which stalks in the stillness of the
noonday, when the glare of an artificial sunshine lights up the
motionless trees, moved all about her. In front and behind she was aware
of it. Beyond this stealthy silence, just within the edge of it, the
things of another world were passing. But she could not know them. Her
husband knew them, knew their beauty and their awe, yes, but for her
they were out of reach. She might not share with him the very least of
them. It seemed that behind and through the glare of this wintry noonday
in the heart of the woods there brooded another universe of life and
passion, for her all unexpressed. The silence veiled it, the stillness
hid it; but he moved with it all and understood. His love interpreted
it.

She rose to her feet, tottered feebly, and collapsed again upon the
moss. Yet for herself she felt no terror; no little personal fear could
touch her whose anguish and deep longing streamed all out to him whom
she so bravely loved. In this time of utter self-forgetfulness, when she
realized that the battle was hopeless, thinking she had lost even her
God, she found Him again quite close beside her like a little Presence
in this terrible heart of the hostile Forest. But at first she did not
recognize that He was there; she did not know Him in that strangely
unacceptable guise. For He stood so very close, so very intimate, so
very sweet and comforting, and yet so hard to understand--as
Resignation.

Once more she struggled to her feet, and this time turned successfully
and slowly made her way along the mossy glade by which she came. And at
first she marveled, though only for a moment, at the ease with which she
found the path. For a moment only, because almost at once she saw the