attend
you.... Evelyn, good-by!"

He kneeled and lifted to his lips the hem of her dress. As he rose, and
bowing low would have taken formal leave of the two beside her, she put
out her hand, staying him by the gesture and the look upon her colorless
face. "You spoke of a search," she said. "What search?"

Haward raised his eyes to hers that were quiet, almost smiling, though
darkly shadowed by past pain. "I will tell you, Evelyn. Why should not I
tell you this, also?... Four days ago, upon my return to Fair View, I
sought and found the woman that I love,--the woman that, by all that is
best within me, I love worthily! She shrank from me; she listened not; she
shut eye and ear, and fled. And I,--confident fool!--I thought, 'To-morrow
I will make her heed,' and so let her go. When the morrow came she was
gone indeed." He halted, made an involuntary gesture of distress, then
went on, rapidly and with agitation: "There was a boat missing; she was
seen to pass Jamestown, rowing steadily up the river. But for this I
should have thought--I should have feared--God knows what I should not
have feared! As it is I have searchers out, both on this side and on the
southern shore. An Indian and myself have come up river in his canoe. We
have not found her yet. If it be so that she has passed unseen through the
settled country, I will seek her toward the mountains."

"And when you have found her, what then, sir?" cried the Colonel, tapping
his snuffbox.

"Then, sir," answered Haward with hauteur, "she will become my wife."

He turned again to Evelyn, but when he spoke it was less to her than to
himself. "It grows late," he said. "Night is coming on, and at the fall of
the leaf the nights are cold. One sleeping in the forest would suffer ...
if she sleeps. I have not slept since she was missed. I must begone"--

"It grows late indeed," replied Evelyn, with lifted face and a voice low,
clear, and sweet as a silver bell,--"so late that there is a rose flush in
the sky beyond the river. Look! you may see it through yonder window."

She touched his hand and made him look to the far window. "Who is it that
stands in the shadow, hiding her face in her hands?" he asked at last,
beneath his breath.

"'Tis Audrey," answered Evelyn, in the same clear, sweet, and passionless
tones. She took her hand from his and addressed herself to her father.
"Dear sir," she said, "to my mind no quarrel exists between us and this
gentleman. There is n