Having accepted defeat, because she had come to feel that his obsession was not actually evil, she accepted at the same time the conditions of an atrocious loneliness.  She stood now from her husband farther than from the moon.  They had no visitors.  Callers were few and far between, and less encouraged than before.  The empty dark of winter was before them.  Among the neighbors was none in whom, without disloyalty to her husband, she could confide.  Mr. Mortimer, had he been single, might have helped her in this desert of solitude that preyed upon her mind, but his wife was there the obstacle; for Mrs. Mortimer wore sandals, believed that nuts were the complete food of man, and indulged in other idiosyncrasies that classed her inevitably among the “latter signs” which Mrs. Bittacy had been taught to dread as dangerous.  She stood most desolately alone.

Solitude, therefore, in which the mind unhindered feeds upon its own delusions, was the assignable cause of her gradual mental disruption and collapse.

With the definite arrival of the colder weather her husband gave up his rambles after dark; evenings were spent together over the fire; he read The Times; they even talked about their postponed visit abroad in the coming spring.  No restlessness was on him at the change; he seemed content and easy in his mind; spoke little of the trees and woods; enjoyed far better health than if there had been change of scene, and to herself was tender, kind, solicitous over trifles, as in the distant days of their first honeymoon.

But this deep calm could not deceive her; it meant, she fully understood, that he felt sure of himself, sure of her, and sure of the trees as well.  It all lay buried in the depths of him, too secure and deep, too intimately established in his central being to permit of those surface fluctuations which betray disharmony within.  His life was hid with trees.  Even the fever, so dreaded in the damp of winter, left him free.  She now knew why:  the fever was due to their efforts to obtain him, his efforts to respond and go—­physical results of a fierce unrest he had never understood till Sanderson came with his wicked explanations.  Now it was otherwise.  The bridge was made.  And—­he had gone.

And she, brave, loyal, and consistent soul, found herself utterly alone, even trying to make his passage easy.  It seemed that she stood at the bottom of some huge ravine that opened in her mind, the walls whereof instead of rock were trees that reached enormous to the sky, engulfing her.  God alone knew that she was there.  He watched, permitted, even perhaps approved.  At any rate—­He knew.