He looked at her then and he saw her eyes were filled with tears. He thought he had frightened her. He waited until he had himself well in hand before he spoke again.
"Kathleen, always believe in the good of things, dearest girl. And, Kathleen," the words that came to him were almost as great a surprise to him as they were to her. "Never leave that crucifix off your neck. Promise me, dear?"
"I promise."
A little later they went in to tea.
He got to bed that night with a great feeling of relief that in the morning they would all be back in town. He had thought something would happen. He had not known what, but the feeling had been there. He did not mind admitting it to himself now, and he did not mind acknowledging that he could not understand how the thing, whatever it was, had been avoided. Unformed, undefinable, it had been powerfully imminent. He fell asleep wondering what it was that he had expected.
The full moon was streaming into the room when he awoke.
He was on his feet in the middle of the floor in a flash.
He could have sworn a cry had awakened him. A woman's voice calling for help—A woman's voice that had been strangely like Kathleen's.
He went to the window and looked out. A cloud had drifted across the surface of the full moon. The whole garden lay blotched with shadows. And there beyond the garden was the forest. Black, sinister, mysterious. The dark depth of it sickened him. Kathleen had spoken only that afternoon of the forest. The Wood of Living Trees. She had told him it was called The Wood of Living Trees.
In Heaven's name, where did the horrible, appalling significance of the Wood of Living Trees come from? What was this ghastly knowledge that sought for recognition in his own mind? What did the Wood of Living Trees mean to him?