He stood with his bold head high lifted toward the sky, but bearing the weight of winter, and when it passed he would not be found unscarred.
Already one great branch dropped under its freighting, and as the man and woman looked out they could hear from time to time the crash of weaker brethren out there in the forests; victims and sacrifices to the crushing of a beauty that was also fatal.
Until spring answered her question, Dorothy reflected, she could only guess how deep the blight, which she had discovered in the fall, had struck at the robustness of the old tree's life. For all its stalwartness its life had already been long, and if it should die—she closed her eyes as though to shut out a horror, and a shudder ran through her body.
"What is it, honey," demanded the man, anxiously, as he felt her tremor against his arm, "air ye cold?"
Dorothy opened her eyes and laughed, but with a tremulousness in her mirth.
"I reckon I hain't plum rekivered from ther fright hit give me when ye went over thar ter Virginny," she answered, "sometimes I feels plum timorous."
"But ther peril's done past now," he reassured her, "an' all ther enemies we had, thet's wuth winnin' over, hev done come ter be friends."
"All thet's wuth winnin' over, yes," she admitted without conviction, "but hit's ther other kind thet a body hes most cause ter fear."
Into the man's thought flashed the picture of Bas Rowlett, and a grim stiffness came to his lips, but she could hardly know of that remaining danger, he reflected, and he asked seriously, "What enemies does ye mean, honey?"
She, too, had been thinking of Bas, and she, too, believed that fear to be her own exclusive secret, so she answered in a low voice: