"It is only the wind in the leaves, or the breaking of a dead branch."
He is fortunate who at night, in the heart of a forest, feels as calm as at his own fireside. You do not tremble, but you feel the silence. Involuntarily you look for eyes peering out of the darkness, and you try to define the confused forms appearing and changing every minute. Something breaks and sounds beneath your tread, and if you stop you hear the distant melancholy howl of your watch-dog, the scream of an owl, and other noises, far and near, not so easily explained. A sense of strangeness surrounds you and weighs you down. If you are alone, you walk faster; if there are two of you, you draw close to your companion. My wife clung to my arm.
"Let us turn wood-cutters. We could build a pretty little hut, simple, but nice enough. I would have curtains to the windows, and a carpet, and put my piano in one corner." She spoke very low, and occasionally I felt my hand tremble on her arm.
"You would soon get enough of that, dearest."
"It isn't fair to say so." And in another minute she went on:—"You think I don't love you, you and our boy? Oh yes, dear, I love you. Yes, yes, yes! The happiness that comes every day can't be expressed: we live on it, so we don't think of it. Like our daily bread—who thinks of that? But when you are thinking of yourself, when you put your head down, and really think, then you say, 'I am ungrateful, for I am happy, and I give no thanks for it.' Or when we are alone together, and walking arm-in-arm, now, at this very moment,—not that I mean only this moment,—I love you, I love you." She put her head down on my arm and pressed it earnestly. "Oh," she said, "if I were to lose you!" She spoke very low, as if afraid. What had frightened her? The darkness and the forest, or her own words?
She went on:—"I have often and often dreamed that I was saying good-by to you. You both cried, and I pressed you so close to my heart that there was only one of us. It was a nightmare, you know, but I don't mind it, for it showed me that my life was in your lives, dear. What is that cracking noise? Didn't you see something just in front of us?"
I answered her by taking her in my arms and folding her to my heart. We walked on, but it was impossible to go on talking. Every now and then she would stop and say, "Hush! hark! No, it is nothing."
At last we saw ahead of us a little light, now visible, now hidden by a tree. It was the lamp set for us in our parlor window. We crossed the stile and were at home. It was high time, for we were wet through.
I brought a huge log, and when the fire had blazed up we sat down in the great chimney-place. The poor girl was shivering. I took off her boots and held her feet to the fire, screening them with my hands.
"Thanks, dear George, thanks!" she said, leaning on my shoulder and looking at me so tenderly that I felt almost ready to cry.