At each Christmas for several years they had been tempted to cut this
tree, but had spared it for its conspicuous beauty at the edge of the
thicket.
"That one," she now said, pointing down. "This is the last time. Let
us have the best of things while we may! Is it not always the perfect
that is demanded for sacrifice?"
His glance had already gone forward eagerly to the tree, and he
started toward it.
Descending, they stepped across the brook to the island and went up
close to the fir. With a movement not unobserved by her he held out
his hand and clasped three green fingers of a low bough which the fir
seemed to stretch out to him recognizingly. (She had always realized
the existence of some intimate bond between him and the forest.) His
face now filled with meanings she did not share; the spell of the
secret work had followed him out of the house down to the trees;
incommunicable silence shut him in. A moment later his fingers parted
with the green fingers of the fir and he moved away from her side,
starting around the tree and studying it as though in delight of fresh
knowledge. So she watched him pass around to the other side.
When he came back where he had started, she was not there.
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