The lane was a place of enchantment--a long, moonlit colonnade
adown which beguiling wood nymphs might have footed it featly.
The moonshine fell through the arching boughs and made a mosaic of silver
light and clear-cut shadow for the unfriendly lovers to walk in.
On either side was the hovering gloom of the woods, and around them
was a great silence unstirred by wind or murmur.
Midway in the lane Lucinda was attacked by a sentimental recollection.
She thought of the last time Romney and she had walked home
together through this very lane, from a party at "young" John's. It
had been moonlight then too, and--Lucinda checked a sigh--
they had walked hand in hand. Just here, by the big gray beech,
he had stopped her and kissed her. Lucinda wondered if he were
thinking of it, too, and stole a look at him from under the lace
border of her fascinator.
But he was striding moodily along with his hands in his pockets,
and his hat pulled down over his eyes, passing the old beech
without a glance at it. Lucinda checked another sigh,
gathered up an escaped flutter of voile, and marched on.
Past the lane a range of three silvery harvest fields sloped down
to Peter Penhallow's brook--a wide, shallow stream bridged over
in the olden days by the mossy trunk of an ancient fallen tree.
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