The thought never once crossed her to turn back, and go again into the shelter of her own little hut among the flowers. He was sick there, dying, for anything she knew; that was the only thing she remembered.
It was a clear, starlit night, and everywhere the fragrance of the spring was borne in from the wide green plains, and the streams where the rushes were blowing.
She walked ten miles easily, the beautiful gray shadow all about her. She had never been so far from home in all her life, except to that one Kermesse at Mechlin. But she was not afraid.
With the movement, and the air, and the sense that she was going to him, which made her happy even in her misery, something of the old, sweet, lost fancies came to her.
She smiled at the stars through her tears, and as the poplars swayed and murmured in the wind, they looked to her like the wings and the swords of a host of angels.
Her way lay out through the forest, and in that sweet green woodland she was not afraid—no more afraid than the fawns were.
At Boitsfort she shrank a little, indeed. Here there were the open-air restaurants, and the café gardens all alight for the pleasure-seekers from the city; here there were music and laughter, and horses with brass bells, and bright colors on high in the wooden balconies, and below among the blossoming hawthorn hedges. She had to go through it all, and she shuddered a little as she ran, thinking of that one priceless, deathless forest day when he had kissed her first.
But the pleasure-people were all busied with their mirth and mischief, and took no notice of the little gray figure in the starry night. She went on along the grassy roads, under the high arching trees, with the hoot of the owls and the cry of the rabbits on the stillness.
At Groenendael, in the heart of the forest midnight was striking as she entered the village. Every one was asleep. The lights were all out The old ruined priory frowned dark under the clouds.
She shivered a little again, and began to feel chill and tired, yet did not dare to knock at any one of the closed house doors—she had no money.