"How long ago was that?" she asked, deeply touched.
He grew troubled.
"Many and many a year ago—oh, many a long, weary year, for Zacharias!"
"And you still think of the old days?"
"When the bees come droning in the middle of the day, sometimes I think of them."
He struck his hands lightly together and his misty-bright eyes were plainly looking through sixty years as though they were a day.
"But why did you leave?" asked Ruth tenderly.
Zacharias slowly drew his eyes away from the mists of the past and became aware of the girl's face once more.
"Because my soul was burning in sin. It was burning and burning!"
"But wouldn't you like to go back?"