"These woods are very beautiful," said Haward at last, with his gaze upon
her, "but if the land were less level it were more to my taste. Now, if
this plain were a little valley couched among the hills, if to the
westward rose dark blue mountains like a rampart, if the runlet yonder
were broad and clear, if this beech were a sugar-tree"--

He broke off, content to see her eyes dilate, her bosom rise and fall, her
hand go trembling for support to the column of the beech.

"Oh, the mountains!" she cried. "When the mist lifted, when the cloud
rested, when the sky was red behind them! Oh, the clear stream, and the
sugar-tree, and the cabin! Who are you? How did you know about these
things? Were you--were you there?"

She turned upon him, with her soul in her eyes. As for him, lying at
length upon the ground, he locked his hands beneath his head and began to
sing, though scarce above his breath. He sang the song of Amiens:--

"Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me."

When he had come to the end of the stanza he half rose, and turned toward
the mute and breathless figure leaning against the beech-tree. For her the
years had rolled back: one moment she stood upon the doorstep of the
cabin, and the air was filled with the trampling of horses, with quick
laughter, whistling, singing, and the call of a trumpet; the next she ran,
in night-time and in terror, between rows of rustling corn, felt again the
clasp of her pursuer, heard at her ear the comfort of his voice. A film
came between her eyes and the man at whom she stared, and her heart grew
cold.