Again she felt affrighted at their loneliness, which once hardly gave her a thought. All was well enough when people were in health and merry, and one had no need of help; but with trouble or sickness the woods around seemed to shut them cruelly away from all succor--the woods where horses sink to the chest in snow, where storms smother one in mid-April (HTmon 132).
The suffering of her mother only emphasizes how distant they are from any help, and all the while Maria imagines where her father is and what is happening in the distance as he makes his way back.
One of the primary facts about the Chapdelaines that is evident in this novel is that they are free, free to make their own decisions, free to seek a better future, and in some degree free to remain in isolation or to move somewhere else. They may not choose to do s
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