Isabey’s horse picked his way, followed by Angela’s, under the odorous feathery branches of the pine trees where the ground was softly carpeted with brown pine needles. When they were out of sight of the road and well in the heart of the woods, Isabey dismounted and took Angela from her horse. Her young strength had given out and she was so fatigued that she sank, rather than sat, upon a fallen tree. Isabey quickly tied the horses and unsaddled them; then with the saddles and blankets he made a kind of rude couch for Angela. She lay down upon it, and Isabey, after arranging her, began to walk up and down among the tree trunks close by. “Don’t leave me,” Angela called softly, in a voice like a frightened child. “I shan’t leave you,” replied Isabey, coming back and standing before her, “nor even take my eyes off you. Hear the horses blowing and snorting. Listen to them a little while. They are exactly like tired human creatures in their complaining.” “And I can listen also to the water under the bridge. Hear it as it ripples past.” Angela listened a while, about five minutes, and then Isabey, coming up softly to her again, found that the little stream to which she had listened had become the river of forgetfulness and she had fallen into a sudden sweet sleep. The air was sharp, and Isabey, taking off his military cape, wrapped it around her. Angela was so worn out with the fatigues and agitations of the day that she slept as soundly as if she were in her own great four-posted bed at Harrowby. Isabey, sitting on the fallen tree trunk, kept watch over her. There were still tears upon her cheeks, and, taking out his white handkerchief, he gently wiped them away without waking her. Her face was pale at first, but as she felt the warmth of the cape the blood returned to her cheeks, which in a little while were overspread with a rosy glow like that of a sleeping child. Her long braided hair had become loosened, and Isabey, lifting it gently from where it had fallen against a half-bare bush, carefully disengaged it. The silky locks fell over his hands, and he held them in his clasp for a minute or two, then involuntarily pressed his lips upon them and laid them upon Angela’s breast, covered with his cloak.