she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah,
entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with a
strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her hand
for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade,
and stood open-mouthed.

"I wish to speak," said the new Audrey. "I was waiting for you. There's a
question I wish to ask, and I'll ask it of you who were never kind to me."

"Never kind to her!" cried the minister's wife to the four walls. "And
she's been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than the
beggar wench she is! And this is my return,--to sit by her in church
to-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me"--

"I belong to no one," said Audrey. "Even God does not want me. Be quiet
until I have done." She made again the gesture of pushing aside from face
and eyes the mist that clung and blinded. "I know now what they say," she
went on. "The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady spoke to me:
now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who saved my life,
who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he sailed away, where
he thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he came again after so
many years; because he has often been to the glebe house, and I to Fair
View; because last night he would have me go with him to the Governor's
ball, they think--they say out loud for all the people to hear--that
I--that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month at the Court House. But
it is not of the lies they tell that I wish to speak."

Her hand went again to her forehead, then dropped at her side. A look of
fear and of piteous appeal came into her face. "The witch said that I
dreamed, and that it was not well for dreamers to awaken." Suddenly the
quiet of her voice and bearing was broken. With a cry, she hurried across
the room, and, kneeling, caught at the other's gown. "Ah! that is no
dream, is it? No dream that he is my friend, only my friend who has always
been sorry for me, has always helped me! He is the noblest gentleman, the
truest, the best--he loves the lady at Westover--they are to be
married--he never knew what people were saying--he was not himself when he
spoke to me so last night"--Her eyes appealed to the face above her. "I
could never have dreamed all this," she said. "Tell me that I was awake!"

The minister's wife looked down upon her with a bitter smile. "So you've
had your fool's parad