She had to go through it all, and she shuddered a little as she ran, thinking of that one priceless, deathless forest day when he had kissed her first.
But the pleasure-people were all busied with their mirth and mischief, and took no notice of the little gray figure in the starry night.

She went on along the grassy roads, under the high arching trees, with the hoot of the owls and the cry of the rabbits on the stillness.
At Groenendael, in the heart of the forest midnight was striking as she entered the village.

Every one was asleep.

The lights were all out The old ruined priory frowned dark under the clouds.
She shivered a little again, and began to feel chill and tired, yet did not dare to knock at any one of the closed house doors--she had no money.
So she walked on her first ten unknown miles, meeting a few people only, and being altogether unmolested--a small gray figure, trotting in two little wooden shoes.
They thought her a peasant going to a fair or a lace mill, and no one did her more harm than to wish her good night in rough Flemish.
When the dawn began to whiten above the plains of the east, she saw an empty cow-shed filled with hay; she was a little tired, and lay down and rested an hour or two, as a young lamb might have lain on the dried clover, for she knew that she must keep her strength and husband her power, or never reach across the dreary length of the foreign land to Paris.
But by full sunrise she was on her way again, bathing her face in a brook and buying a sou's worth of bread and flet-milk at the first cottage that she passed in bright, leaf-bowered Hoey-laert.
The forest was still all around her, with its exquisite life of bough and blossom, and murmur of insect and of bird.

She told her beads, praying as she went, and was almost happy.
God would not let him die.