thought then--that you were sent"--

He looked at her with strange compassion. "My own will sent me.... When,
that sunny afternoon, we spurred from the valley toward the higher
mountains, we left behind us a forest flower, a young girl of simple
sweetness, with long dark hair,--like yours, Audrey.... It was to pluck
that flower that I deserted the expedition, that I went back to the valley
between the hills."

Her eyes dilated, and her hands very slowly rose to press her temples, to
make a shadow from which she might face the cup of trembling he was
pouring for her.

"_Molly!_" she said, beneath her breath.

He nodded. "Well, Death had gathered the flower.... Accident threw across
my path a tinier blossom, a helpless child. Save you then, care for you
then, I must, or I had been not man, but monster. Did I care for you
tenderly, Audrey? Did I make you love me with all your childish heart? Did
I become to you father and mother and sister and fairy prince? Then what
were you to me in those old days? A child fanciful and charming, too fine
in all her moods not to breed wonder, to give the feeling that Nature had
placed in that mountain cabin a changeling of her own. A child that one
must regard with fondness and some pity,--what is called a dear child.
Moreover, a child whose life I had saved, and to whom it pleased me to
play Providence. I was young, not hard of heart, sedulous to fold back to
the uttermost the roseleaves of every delicate and poetic emotion,
magnificently generous also, and set to play my life _au grand seigneur_.
To myself assume a responsibility which with all ease might have been
transferred to an Orphan Court, to put my stamp upon your life to come, to
watch you kneel and drink of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand
and with an indulgent smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and
advantage,--why, what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what
subtle flattery of self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed
you good-by, and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at
you, fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you
never to forget me--and sailed away upon the Golden Rose to meet my
crowded years with their wine and roses, upas shadows and apples of Sodom.
How long before I forgot you, Audrey? A year and a day, perhaps. I protest
that I cannot remember exactly."

He slightly changed his position, but came no nearer to her. It was
g