‘Tis the wind.—

You’re riding through the wood to Chatillon.

De Vardes

It was a lonely forest, deep and vast,

A secret and a soundless trysting-place,

Where one might meet, nor be surprised to meet,

From out his past, or from his life to come,

A veilèd shape, a presence bitter-sweet,

A thing that was, a thing was yet to be!

It seemed a fatal place, a destined day.