Skirting along the hill with a gradual descent, the broad gravel-walk plunged into the valley, and there all was altered once more. A wide and uncultivated wood swept round, a small sparkling rivulet dashing on towards the broader stream amidst bushes and shrubs and water plants; a willow here and there bending down its long pliant branches over the glittering stream, and a patch of tall bulrushes raising their long green stems, where any occasional interruption occasioned the water to spread out. The trees were far apart, though the ground was broken and uneven, and the flapping wing of a heron, with his gray shadowy form rising up at some fifty or sixty yards' distance, added to the saddening and sombering effect. It was like a discord in a fine piece of music: just protracted long enough to make what had gone before and what followed after more delightful, and the next minute they issued forth upon the warm green meadows, gilded with buttercups, that lay by the side of the wider river. Heaven only knows what Isabella meant in bringing Beauchamp by that path, if she did not intend him to make love to her. She could have taken him round by the other side of the house, and the straight horse-road to the bridge, or down over the turf through the open parts of the park, amongst the deer and fern to the farther end of the river, where it issued out of the grounds. But no, whether from something that was going on in her own bosom, which made her instinctively choose the scenes that most assimilated with her feelings, or from accident, caprice, or design, she led him through a path, full of the sense of love. There was one too many for a declaration, it is true; and she knew she was so far guarded; but yet it was a very dangerous walk for any two people, whose hearts had no better security than the simple presence of another, to stray along upon such a day as that.