had no intention of
being pushed aside and buried permanently. "Now look!" they whispered,
"didn't we tell you so?" They had been merely waiting the right moment
to assert their presence. And all her former vague distress crept over
her. Anxiety, uneasiness returned. That dreadful sinking of the heart
came too.

This incident of the cedar's breaking up was actually so unimportant,
and yet her husband's attitude towards it made it so significant. There
was nothing that he said in particular, or did, or left undone that
frightened, her, but his general air of earnestness seemed so
unwarranted. She felt that he deemed the thing important. He was so
exercised about it. This evidence of sudden concern and interest, buried
all the summer from her sight and knowledge, she realized now had been
buried purposely, he had kept it intentionally concealed. Deeply
submerged in him there ran this tide of other thoughts, desires, hopes.
What were they? Whither did they lead? The accident to the tree betrayed
it most unpleasantly, and, doubtless, more than he was aware.

She watched his grave and serious face as he worked there with the
children, and as she watched she felt afraid. It vexed her that the
children worked so eagerly. They unconsciously supported him. The thing
she feared she would not even name. But it was waiting.

Moreover, as far as her puzzled mind could deal with a dread so vague
and incoherent, the collapse of the cedar somehow brought it nearer. The
fact that, all so ill-explained and formless, the thing yet lay in her
consciousness, out of reach but moving and alive, filled her with a kind
of puzzled, dreadful wonder. Its presence was so very real, its power so
gripping, its partial concealment so abominable. Then, out of the dim
confusion, she grasped one thought and saw it stand quite clear before
her eyes. She found difficulty in clothing it in words, but its meaning
perhaps was this: That cedar stood in their life for something friendly;
its downfall meant disaster; a sense of some protective influence about
the cottage, and about her husband in particular, was thereby weakened.

"Why do you fear the big winds so?" he had asked her several days
before, after a particularly boisterous day; and the answer she gave
surprised her while she gave it. One of those heads poked up
unconsciously, and let slip the truth.

"Because, David, I feel they--bring the Forest with them," she faltered.
"They blow something f