Have you ever closed your eyes, and seen suddenly and vividly in a mental picture some scene that was enacted years and years before--seen the figures moving in it, just as they did long ago? That was what I saw then, or began to see, when, suddenly raising my eyes, I saw standing in the sunlight an easel with a canvas upon it. I knew then that in some extraordinary fashion I had dropped back through the years, and had come again as a young man into the wood. Yet not as a young man; because now I was poor and old, and shabby and tired--and it was winter. There could be no getting away from that; in spite of the sunlight it was winter. I walked up to the canvas, and touched it, to be sure that it was real. And then, knowing my way clearly, as it seemed, I walked on into the depths of the wood, looking about me. God of mercy!--she was there! I saw her coming straight through the wood--Barbara, with her hands outstretched, and a smile on her face; I knew her in a moment. And going towards her, as it seemed, was myself--a tall straight youth, with an easy step and an eager manner, meeting her and holding her hands, and looking into her eyes. I had slipped behind a tree, so that they did not see me; I stood there with my hands pressed against my throbbing temples, looking on at what seemed to be a dream picture of something that had happened years and years before--looking on at myself, and seeming to live again my own hopeless love story. For now I saw that the boy held her close in his arms, and whispered to her; and she seemed to be weeping. My first thought was that I must have suddenly gone mad, or that this was some dream out of which I should presently wake. But while I stood there staring at them, I went over in my mind all that I had done the previous night and that day: my long walk from London--and the coming into the old town at break of day--then this further journey here. I looked down at my shabby clothes, and stared in bewilderment at my coarsened hands with the broken nails. Yes--I was convict No. 145--once Charlie Avaline; and these were no dream figures, but two people living out again, in some strange fashion, the life that I had lived in a few short hours with Barbara Patton. Yet here was Barbara herself--with the eyes of my Barbara, and the face of my Barbara--all unchanged, as I had dreamed of her so often in my cell in prison! How was I to account for that? I remained hidden at no great distance from them; I saw them presently part. The boy was impressing something upon her; I saw her dry her tears, and listen, and even strive to smile at something that he said. Then they clung together for a moment or two--and she ran away through the woods, waving her hand to him as she went. He walked back dejectedly to his easel, and packed up his things, and went away. And I, in a fever of anxiety and remorse and wonder, followed him.