Leaving the library they went into the hall, and from the hall looked into
great, echoing, half-furnished rooms. All about lay packing-cases, many of
them open, with rich stuffs streaming from them. Ornaments were huddled on
tables, mirrors and pictures leaned their faces to the walls; everywhere
was disorder.
"The negroes are careless, and to-day I held their hands," said Haward. "I
must get some proper person to see to this gear."
Up stairs and down they went through the house, that seemed very large and
very still, and finally they came out of the great front door, and down
the stone steps on to the terrace. Below them, sparkling in the sunshine,
lay the river, the opposite shore all in a haze of light. "I must go
home," Audrey shyly reminded him, whereat he smiled assent, and they went,
not through the box alley to the gate in the wall, but down the terrace,
and out upon the hot brown boards of the landing. Haward, stepping into a
boat, handed her to a seat in the stern, and himself took the oars.
Leaving the landing, they came to the creek and entered it. Presently
they were gliding beneath the red brick wall with the honeysuckle atop. On
the opposite grassy shore, seated in a blaze of noon sunshine, was Hugon.
They in the boat took no notice. Haward, rowing, spoke evenly on, his
theme himself and the gay and lonely life he had led these eleven years;
and Audrey, though at first sight of the waiting figure she had paled and
trembled, was too safe, too happy, to give to trouble any part of this
magic morning. She kept her eyes on Haward's face, and almost forgot the
man who had risen from the grass and in silence was following them.
Now, had the trader, in his hunting shirt and leggings, his moccasins and
fur cap, been walking in the great woods, this silence, even with others
in company, would have been natural enough to his Indian blood; but
Monsieur Jean Hugon, in peruke and laced coat, walking in a civilized
country, with words a-plenty and as hot as fire-water in his heart, and
none upon his tongue, was a figure strange and sinister. He watched the
two in the boat with an impassive face, and he walked like an Indian on an
enemy's trail, so silently that he scarce seemed to breathe, so lightly
that his heavy boots failed to crush the flowers or the tender grass.
Haward rowed on, telling Audrey stories of the town, of great men whose
names she knew, and beautiful ladies of whom she had never heard; and she
sat before him with her slim brown hands folded in her lap and the
rosebuds withering in her hair, while through the reeds and the grass and
the bushes of the bank over against them strode Hugon in his Blenheim wig
and his wine-colored coat. Well-nigh together the three reached the stake
driven in among the reeds, a hundred yards below the minister's house.
Haward fastened the boat, and, motioning to Audrey to stay for the moment
where she was, stepped out upon the bank to confront the trader, who,
walking steadily and silently as ever, was almost upon them.