They reached the scrub, and skirting it, came to the ditch that bounded the wood. Marpasse still kept her arm about Denise.
“Gently, sister, gently; it would be a shame to spoil everything by bolting like a hare. Be sure, our friends behind are watching us.”
Marpasse turned her head to look.
“Curses!” and the strain of the moment showed in her impatience, “one of the fools is strolling after us. We cannot go far with only our shadows for company. Over! No muddy shoes this time.”
They were across the ditch, and on the edge of the wood, Marpasse still holding Denise as they went in amid the trees. She kept looking back till the open land and the sky were shut out by the dense lattice work of the boughs. The men had not followed them across the ditch, and Marpasse blessed their luck when she saw that the underwood had been cut that winter so that it would be quicker running between the stubs. Only the dead leaves troubled Marpasse, rustling and crackling under their feet.
“Now for it, run, run!”
She let go of Denise, and they gathered up their skirts and started off, scudding between the tree boles, never stopping to look back. Denise did not feel her feet under her. The brown leaves, the coarse grass, and the wild flowers were like so much water over which she seemed to skim, yet not so swiftly as her fear fled. She was quicker than Marpasse, because her passion to escape burnt at a greater heat. Marpasse had torn her skirt on a stub and was panting when they came to the farther edge of the wood.
They paused a moment, and stood listening, and could hear the confused hum of the host like the humming of bees. A meadow lay before them, bounded by a second wood that towered up the steep slope of a hill. Against the blue a lark hung with quivering wings, and quivering song. As they stood listening a shout rose in the deeps of the wood behind them. Denise was off like a deer, her whole soul quivering like the wings of the lark overhead. Marpasse stayed a second to pull up a stocking that had slipped to her ankle, and then ran on after Denise across the meadow.
They were close to the outstanding trees of the second wood, when Denise looked back and saw that they were followed. The two men-at-arms who had had the guarding of them had been too shrewd to go beating through the trees on foot when they had begun to suspect Marpasse of playing a trick on them. They had mounted their horses, and ridden different ways so as to circle the wood and gain a view of the two vixens when they took to the open.
Marpasse cursed them for their pains.