Her voice ceased, and the silence closed in around them. The sun was
setting, and in the west were purple islands merging into a sea of gold.
The river, too, was colored, and every tree was like a torch burning
stilly in the quiet of the evening. For some time MacLean watched the
girl, who now again seemed unconscious of his presence; but at last he got
to his feet, and looked toward his boat. "I must be going," he said; then,
as Audrey raised her head and the light struck upon her face, he continued
more kindly than one would think so stern a seeming man could speak: "I am
sorry for you, my maid. God knows that I should know how dreadful are the
wounds of the spirit! Should you need a friend"-Audrey shook her head. "No more friends," she said, and laughed as she had
laughed before. "They belong in dreams. When you are awake,--that is a
different thing."
The storekeeper went his way, back to the Fair View store, rowing slowly,
with a grim and troubled face, while Darden's Audrey sat still upon the
green hillock and watched the darkening river. Behind her, at no great
distance, was the glebe house; more than once she thought she heard Hugon
coming through the bushes and calling her by name. The river darkened more
and more, and in the west the sea of gold changed to plains of amethyst
and opal. There was a crescent moon, and Audrey, looking at it with eyes
that ached for the tears that would not gather, knew that once she would
have found it fair.
Hugon was coming, for she heard the twigs upon the path from the glebe
house snap beneath his tread. She did not turn or move; she would see him
soon enough, hear him soon enough. Presently his black eyes would look
into hers; it would be bird and snake over again, and the bird was tired
of fluttering. The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on her
shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; instead only
shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the flowing river. But
the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger, and it stole
down to clasp her own. "Audrey," said a voice that was not Hugon's.
The girl flung back her head, saw Haward's face bending over her, and with
a loud cry sprang to her feet. When he would have touched her again she
recoiled, putting between them a space of green grass. "I have hunted you
for an hour," he began. "At last I struck this path. Audrey"-Audrey's hands went to her ears. Step by step she moved backward, until
she stood against the trunk of a blood-red oak. When she saw that Haward
followed her she uttered a terrified scream. At the sound and at the sight
of her face he stopped short, and his outstretched hand fell to his side.
"Why, Audrey, Audrey!" he exclaimed. "I would not hurt you, child. I am
not Jean Hugon!"