"
It sounded like a pronouncement of Bill's. But Lauer did not often
grow serious. Mostly he was jovially cheerful, and his wife likewise.
The North had emancipated them, and they were loyal to the source of
their deliverance. And Hazel understood, because she herself had found
the wild land a benefactor, kindly in its silence, restful in its
forested peace, a cure for sickness of soul. Twice now it had rescued
her from herself.
November and December went their appointed way--and still no word of
Bill. If now and then her pillow was wet she struggled mightily
against depression. She was not lonely in the dire significance of the
word--but she longed passionately for him. And she held fast to her
faith that he would come.
The last of the old year she went little abroad, ventured seldom beyond
the clearing. And on New Year's Eve Jake Lauer's wife came to the
cabin to stay.
Hazel sat up, wide awake, on the instant. There was not the slightest
sound. She had been deep in sleep. Nevertheless she felt, rather than
knew, that some one was in the living-room. Perhaps the sound of the
door opening had filtered through her slumber. She hesitated an
instant, not through fear, because in the months of living alone fear
had utterly forsaken her; but hope had leaped so often, only to fall
sickeningly, that she was half persuaded it must be a dream.
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