he
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!"

She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that he
caught his breath to behold her. "You are all the world to me!" he cried.
"Audrey, Audrey! Look at me, listen to me!"

He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she waved
him back. "Oh, the world! We must think of that! What would they say, the
Governor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, and all the
great folk you write to in England,--what would they say if you married
me? Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia! Mr.
Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proud
of his name, jealous of his honor! And Darden's Audrey, who hath gone
barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish! Darden's Audrey,
whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church! They would
call you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, 'Does he
think that he can make her one of us?--her that we turned and looked long
upon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name'"--

"Child, for God's sake!" cried Haward.

"There is the lady, too,--the lady who left us here together! We must not
forget to think of her,--of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View,
who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at the
Palace. There is reproach in her eyes. Ah, do you not think the look might
grow, might come to haunt us? And yourself! Oh, sooner or later regret and
weariness would come to dwell at Fair View! The lady who walks in the
garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am a
beggar maid and no man's mate, unless it be Hugon's. Hugon, who has sworn
to have me in the house he has built! Hugon, who would surely kill you"--

Haward caught her by the wrists, bruising them in his grasp. "Audrey,
Audrey! Let these fancies be! If we love each other"--

"If!" she echoed, and pulled her hands away. Her voice was strange, her
eyes were bright and strained, her face was burning. "But if not, what
then? And how should I love you who are a strang