great
pine, blasted and afire, uprooted itself and fell from them like a reed
that the wind has snapped. The thunder crash, and the din with which the
tree met its fellows of the forest, bore them down, and finally struck the
earth from which it came, seemed an alarum to waken all nature from its
sleep. The thunder became incessant, and the wind suddenly arising the
forest stretched itself and began to speak with no uncertain voice.
MacLean took his seat again upon the log, but Audrey slipped into the
road, and stood in the whirling dust, her arm raised above her eyes,
looking for the horseman whose approach she could not hope to hear through
the clamor of the storm. The wind lifted her long hair, and the rising
dust half obscured her form, bent against the blast. On the lonesome
road, in the partial light, she had the seeming of an apparition, a
creature tossed like a ball from the surging forest. She had made herself
a world, and she had become its product. In all her ways, to the day of
her death, there was about her a touch of mirage, illusion, fantasy. The
Highlander, imaginative like all his race, and a believer in things not of
heaven nor of earth, thought of spirits of the glen and the shore.

There was no rain as yet; only the hurly-burly of the forest, the white
dust cloud, and the wild commotion overhead. Audrey turned to MacLean,
watching her in silence. "He is coming!" she cried. "There is some one
with him. Now, now he is safe!"

CHAPTER XV

HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND

MacLean sprang up from the log, and, joining her, saw indeed two horsemen
galloping toward them, their heads bent and riding cloaks raised to shield
them from the whirlwind of dust, dead leaves, and broken twigs. He knew
Haward's powerful steed Mirza, but the other horse was strange.

The two rode fast. A moment, and they were splashing through the stream;
another, and the horses, startled by Audrey's cry and waving arms and by
the sudden and violent check on the part of their riders, were rearing and
curveting across the road. "What the devil!" cried one of the horsemen.
"Imp or sprite, or whatever you are, look out! Haward, your horse will
trample her!"

But Audrey, with her hand on Mirza's bridle, had no fears. Haward stared
at her in amazement. "Child, what are you doing here? Angus, you too!" as
the storekeeper advanced. "What rendezvous is this? Mirza, be quiet!"

Audrey left her warning to be spoken by MacLean. She was at p