"Where you are to go!" he exclaimed. "Why, back to the glebe house, and I
will follow, and the minister shall marry us. Child, child! where else
should you go? What else should you do?"
"God knows!" cried the girl, with sudden and extraordinary passion. "But
not that! Oh, he is gone,--that other who would have understood!"
Haward let fall his outstretched hand, drew back a pace or two, and stood
with knitted brows. The room was very quiet; only Audrey breathed
hurriedly, and through the open window came the sudden, lonely cry of some
river bird. The note was repeated ere Haward spoke again.
"I will try to understand," he said slowly. "Audrey, is it Evelyn that
comes between us?"
Audrey passed her hand over her eyes and brow and pushed back her heavy
hair. "Oh, I have wronged her!" she cried. "I have taken her portion. If
once she was cruel to me, yet to-day she kissed me, her tears fell upon my
face. That which I have robbed her of I want not.... Oh, my heart, my
heart!"
"'T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady," said Haward, after a
pause. "I have, I hope, her forgiveness. Is this the fault that keeps you
from me?"
Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloud
in the south that was now an amethyst island. Haward went closer to her.
"Is it," he said, "is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey,
because I brought upon you insult and calumny? Child, child! I am of the
world. That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endless
bliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own.
Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past." He bowed his head as he stood
before her.
Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned. A hot color had
risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledge
of loss. "There is no past," she said. "It was a dream and a lie. There is
only to-day ... and you are a stranger."
The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the
lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing as
they went about their work. Suddenly Audrey laughed. It was sad laughter,
as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumn
twilight. "A stranger!" she repeated. "I know you by your name, and that
is all. You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I--I am Darden's
Audrey!"