"Yes," she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with
slowly parting lips, and a strange expression in her eyes.
He went on quietly as before, every feature controlled to impassivity and
his arms lightly folded: "That is well. Between the day when I found you
again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer,--a summer! To me all
the summers that ever I had or will have,--ten thousand summers! Now tell
me how I did in this wonderful summer."
"Ignobly," she answered.
He bowed his head gravely. "Ay, Audrey, it is a good word." With a quick
sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window stood there
looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of bushes; but when
he turned again to the room his face and bearing were as impressive as
before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of determination. "And
that evening by the river when you fled from me to Hugon"-"I had awaked," she said, in a low voice. "You were to me a stranger, and
I feared you."
"And at Westover?"
"A stranger."
"Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when I
wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and cruel
letter, Audrey?"
For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. "A
stranger," she said.
"The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at Fair
View. And to-night, Audrey?"
"A stranger," she would have answered, but her voice broke. There were
shadows under her eyes; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent
expectancy as though she saw or heard one coming.
"A stranger," he acquiesced. "A foreigner in your world of dreams and
shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a
gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength and
weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set to
travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet
call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who
loves at last, loves greatly, with a passion that shall ennoble. A
stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell."
Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear and from far away:
"Farewell."