ps. "No, sah, Marse Duke not on de place. He
order Mirza an' ride off"--a pause--"an' ride off to de glebe house. Yes,
sah, I done tol' him he ought to rest. Goin' to wait tel he come back?"

"No," answered MacLean, with a darkened face. "Tell him I will come to the
great house to-night."

In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master of
his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he did not
row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, kept on
downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and russet and
gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran past Haward's
garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face looked up its
silver reaches.

The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay upon the
river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw
through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue
sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the
wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold
its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a
fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it
was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst
of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his
native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the _daoine shi'_
the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they
dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they
issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race.

A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting
on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of
figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light,
with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the
Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that
it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far
off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when,
after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and
stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her,
standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that
she moved or looked his way.

"How long since you left the glebe hou