XXIV
EDITH DUNMORE wandered slowly through deep thickets, and where she could just see the lighted chasm of Catamount between far tree-tops she lay down to weep and think and be alone. She was like some wounded creature of the forest who would hide, even from its own eyes, on the soft, kindly bosom of the great mother.
She had learned enough to have some understanding of that strange power which of late had broken every day into seconds. These little fragments of time had all shades of color, from joy to despair. She lay recalling those which had been full of revelation. In a strange loneliness she thought of all Robert Master had said, of far more in that wordless, wonderful assurance which had passed from his soul to hers. She knew that to be given in marriage was to leave all for a new love.
She knew better than they suspected—those few dwellers at Buckhorn—how dear, how indispensable she was to them. She knew how soon that loneliness, which had often seemed to fill the heavens above her, would bear them down. Yet she would not hesitate; she would go with him, and for this she felt a sense of shame.
She lay longer than she knew, looking up at the sky through needled crowns of pine. That passion which has all the fabled power of Fate was busy with her.
A band of crows had alighted in a tree above her head and begun cawing. Roc, who had gone to roost in a small fir, answered them. One dove into the great, dusky hall of the near woods and made it echo with his cawing. Roc rose and followed through its green roof into the open sky. The maiden called to him, but he heeded only the call of his own people, and made his choice between flying and creeping, between loneliness and joy, between the paths of men and that appointed for him in the heavens. His had been like her own decision—so she thought—he had heard the one cry which he could not resist. Lately she had neglected him. He had missed her caresses and begun to think of better company, Again and again she called, but he had gone quickly far out of hearing. She listened, waiting and looking into the sky, but he came not.
Master had taken the children home and returned to his little' camp on the pond. She could hear the stroke of his axe; she could hear him singing. She fancied, also, that she could hear the children call—that little trumpet tone which had thrilled her when it rang in the woods. She rose and walked slowly towards the lighted basin below her. She could not bear to turn away from it. She would go down and look across from the edge of the thickets. She feared that she had too freely uncovered her feeling for him.
Soon she turned back, but then she seemed to be treading on her own heart. She ran towards the place where she had met him. She thought not of the children now, but only of the young man. She had heard her father say: "A man throws off his mask when he is alone. If we could see him then we should know what is in his soul." Could she look into his face while he knew not of her being near she would know if he loved her. She tried to enlarge this fancy into a motive. It failed, however, to end her self-reproaches. Soon, almost in tears, she began to whisper: "I do not care. I must see him again. I cannot go until I have seen him."