He followed her through the garden gate he himself had left open, and down
the lane leading to the pasture. At the point where he had entered it from
the right, she turned to the left, keeping away from the mountains and
parallel with the lake. There was no moon, but the night was clear; and no
sound but that of the shrill, sustained chorus of insect life.

Beyond the pasture the lane became nothing but a path, zigzagging up a
hillside between patches of Indian corn. The girl sped over it so lightly
that Ford would have found it hard to keep her in sight if from time to
time she had not paused and waited. When he came near enough to see the
outlines of her form she flew on again, less like a living woman than a
mountain wraith.

From the top of the hill he could see the dull gleam of the lake with its
girdle of lamp-lit towns. Here the woodland began again; not the main body
of the forest, but one of its long arms, thrust down over hill and valley,
twisting its way in among villages and farm lands. That which had been a
path now become a trail, along which the girl flitted with the ease of
habit and familiarity.

In the concentration of his effort to keep the moving white spot in view
Ford lost count of time. Similarly he had little notion of the distance
they were covering. He guessed that they had been ten or fifteen minutes
on the way, and that they might have gone a mile, when, after waiting for
him to come almost near enough to speak to her, she began moving in a
direction at an acute angle to that by which they had come. At the same
time he perceived that they were on the side of a low wooded mountain and
that they were beating their way round it.