A stillness, more oppressive and intolerable than the previous commotion, began to pervade the house and the surrounding woods.

She could hear the regular breathing of the sleepers; she even fancied she could detect the faint impulses of the more distant life in the settlement.

The far-off barking of a dog, a lost shout, the indistinct murmur of some nearer watercourse--mere phantoms of sound--made the silence more irritating.
With a sudden resolution she arose, dressed herself quietly and completely, threw a heavy cloak over her head and shoulders, and opened the door between the living-room and her own.

Her father was sleeping soundly in his bunk in the corner.

She passed noiselessly through the room, opened the lightly fastened door, and stepped out into the night.
In the irritation and disgust of her walk hither, she had never noticed the situation of the cabin, as it nestled on the slope at the fringe of the woods; in the preoccupation of her disappointment and the mechanical putting away of her things, she had never looked once from the window of her room, or glanced backward out of the door that she had entered.