The House in the Forest

From the high, barred window of a house in the Forest of Arles, a pair
of brown eyes looked down pitifully into Pat Tyrrell's very blue eyes.
He was quite sure the eyes were brown, though the girl stood at a
considerable height above him. The window was in the gable end of a
house, which else was hidden from the grassy forest road by high walls.
The place looked like a convent or a prison.

Pat Tyrrell, who was a romantic young man, felt as though drawn upward
by the spell of those brown eyes. He stood staring up, his straw hat in
his hands, his curly fair hair shining in the sun. The girl in the
window had a curious idea that he looked as though he wore a halo. At
Harrow they had given Pat Tyrrell the nickname of the Seraph. He had
certainly a shining look; such a clear bright look that he always stood
out in any assemblage of young men.

He was a soldier though he was in mufti. His height and bearing, and the
flame of his hair reminded the girl in the window of a St. Michael of
Giorgione which she and her father had seen--was it last year, or the
year before, or a hundred years ago?--in a dim Roman Church?