Maria made no answer, but even then her heart told her that all
marriages are not like that; now she is very sure. The love of
Francois Paradis for her, her love for him, is a thing apart-a thing
holy and inevitable--for she was unable to imagine that between
them it should have befallen otherwise; so must this love give
warmth and unfading colour to every day of the dullest life. Always
had she dim consciousness of such a presence-moving the spirit like
the solemn joy of chanted masses, the intoxication of a sunny windy
day, the happiness that some unlooked-for good fortune brings, the
certain promise of abundant harvest ...

In the stillness of the night the roar of the fall sounds loud and
near; the north-west wind sways the tops of spruce and fir with a
sweet cool sighing; again and again, farther away and yet farther,
an owl is hooting; the chill that ushers in the dawn is still
remote. And Maria, in perfect contentment, rests upon the step,
watching the ruddy beam from her fire-flickering, disappearing,
quickened again to birth.

She seems to remember someone long since whispering in her ear that
the world and life were cheerless and gray. The daily round,
brightened only by a few unsatisfying, fleeting pleasures; the slow
passage of unchanging years; the encounter with some young man, like
other young men, whose patient and hopeful courting ends by whining
affection; a marriage then, and afterwards a vista of days under
another roof, but scarce different from those that went before. So
does one live, the voice had told her. Naught very dreadful in the
prospect, and, even were it so, what possible but submission; yet
all level, dreary and chill as an autumn field.