ing any further attention to Krenska's remarks,
Janina began to pack. Her lingerie, her dresses, her books and
notes, and various trifles she carefully folded away into her
school-day trunk, as though she were returning from her vacation.

At the end she bade farewell to Krenska indifferently. Outwardly she
appeared calm and cool, while a slight tremor of her lips alone, and
an inner tremor that she could not still, were the only traces of
the storm.

She ordered her things carried downstairs, and, having still an
hour's time, she went to the woods.

"Forever . . ." she said in a subdued tone, as though addressing the
trees that seemed to bend toward her with a mournful murmur and
rustling of their leaves.

"Forever! . . ." she whispered, gazing at the crimson gleams of the
setting sun that filtered through the tangled branches of the
beeches and shone upon the ground.

The woods seemed wrapt in a great silence, as though they were
listening to her words of final farewell and dumbly wondering how
one who had been born and reared in their midst, who had lived with
their life, who had dreamed so many dreams in their embracing
silence, could bid farewell.

The trees murmured mournfully. A sigh like a song of farewell and a
sad reproach echoed through the wood. The ferns stirred with a
gentle motion, the young hazel leaves fluttered restlessly, the
pines rustled softly with their slender needles the whole wood
trembled and became alive with a prolonged moan. The song of the
birds sounded in broken, startled little snatches, while over the
sky, and over the earth carpeted with leaves and golden mosses and
snowy valley-lilies, and through the whole verdant wood there
flitted mysterious shadows, sounds and calls like the echo of
sorrowful sobbing.

"Stay with me! . . . Stay!" the wood seemed to say.

The torrent roared noisily, swept away the broken boughs that
impeded its course, circled and descended in a cloud of foam, a
cascade of mist shining in the sun with all the colors of the
rainbow; it went irresistibly onward, triumphantly, whispering:
"Go! . . . Go!"

Then there followed a great silence, broken only by the hum of
insects and the dull clatter of falling acorns.

"Forever! . . ." whispered Janina.

She arose and started back toward the station. She walked slowly,
looking about her with fond, lingering gaze upon the trees, the
woodpaths, and the hillsides.

Then she began to think of the new existen