It was a brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on. She felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into her own eyes came the large tears. They did not fall, but through them she saw the forest swim in green and gold. “I have no father or mother,” she said, “and no brother or sister. In all the world there is no one that is kin to me.” Her voice, that was low and full and apt to fall into minor cadences, died away, and she stood with her face raised and slightly turned from the gentleman who lay at her feet, stretched out upon the sere beech leaves. He did not seem inclined to speech, and for a time the little brook and the birds and the wind in the trees sang undisturbed. “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. “Audrey,” said Haward, “come here, child.”