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Even the half-abstracted indifference of her strange host had
been something. But she was alone now. Her words fell on apathetic
solitude; she was acting to viewless space. She rushed to the opening,
dashed the hanging bark aside and leaped to the ground.
She ran forward wildly a few steps, and stopped.
"Hallo!" she cried. "Look, 'tis I, Teresa!"
The profound silence remained unbroken. Her shrillest tones were lost
in an echoless space, even as the smoke of her fire had faded into pure
ether. She stretched out her clenched fists as if to defy the pillared
austerities of the vaults around her.
"Come and take me if you dare!"
The challenge was unheeded. If she had thrown herself violently against
the nearest tree-trunk, she could not have been stricken more
breathless than she was by the compact, embattled solitude that
encompassed her. The hopelessness of impressing these cold and passive
vaults with her selfish passion filled her with a vague fear. In her
rage of the previous night she had not seen the wood in its profound
immobility.


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