Audrey

XXIX.

AMOR VINCIT.

BY now it was early spring in Virginia, and a time of balm and pleasantness. The season had not entered into its complete heritage of gay hues, sweet odors, song, and wealth of bliss. Its birthday robe was yet a-weaving, its coronal of blossoms yet folded buds, its choristers not ready with their fullest pæans. But everywhere was earnest of future riches. In the forest the bloodroot was in flower, and the bluebird and the redbird flashed from the maple that was touched with fire to the beech just lifted from a pale green fountain. In Mistress Stagg’s garden daffodils bloomed, and dim blue hyacinths made sweet places in the grass. The sun lay warm upon upturned earth, blackbirds rose in squadrons and darkened the yet leafless trees, and every wind brought rumors of the heyday toward which the earth was spinning. The days were long and sweet; at night a moon came up, and between it and the earth played soft and vernal airs.

Then a pale light flooded the garden ; the shells bordering its paths gleamed like threaded pearls, and the house showed whiter than a marble sepulchre. Mild incense, cool winds, were there, but quiet came fitfully between the bursts of noise from the lit theatre.

On such a night as this, Audrey, clothed in red silk, with a band of false jewels about her shadowy hair, slipped through the stage door into the garden, and moved across it to the small white house and rest. Her part in the play was done; for all their storming she would not stay. Silence and herself alone, and the mirror in her room; then, sitting before the glass, to see in it darkly the woman whom she had left dead upon the boards yonder, — no, not yonder, but in a far country, and a fair and great city. Love ! love ! and death for love! and her own face in the mirror gazing at her with eyes of that long-dead Italian. It was the exaltation and the dream, mournful, yet not without its luxury, that ended her every day. When the candle burned low, when the face looked but dimly from the glass, then would she rise and quench the flame, and lay herself down to sleep, with the moonlight upon her crossed hands and quiet brow.

She passed through the grape arbor, and opened the door at which Haward had knocked that September night of the Governor’s ball. She was in Mistress Stagg’s long room. At that hour it should have been lit only by a dying fire and a solitary candle: now the fire was low enough, but the room seemed aflare with myrtle tapers. Audrey, coming from the dimness without, shaded her eyes with her hand. The heavy door shut to behind her ; unseeing still she moved toward the fire, but in a moment let fall her hand and began to wonder at the unwonted lights. Mistress Stagg was yet in the playhouse ; who then ? She turned, and saw Haward standing, with folded arms, between her and the door.

The silence was long. He was Marmaduke Haward with all his powers gathered, calm, determined, so desperate to have done with this thing, to at once and forever gain his own and master fate, that his stillness was that of deepest waters, his cool equanimity that of the gamester who knows how will fall the loaded dice. Dressed with his accustomed care, very pale, composed and quiet, he faced her whose spirit yet lingered in a far city, who in the dreamy exaltation of this midnight hour was ever half Audrey of the garden, half that other woman in a dress of red silk, with jewels in her hair, who, love’s martyr, had exulted, given all, and died.

“ How did you come here ? ” she breathed at last. “You said that you would come never again.”

“ After to-night never again,” he answered. “ But now, Audrey, this once again, this once again ! ”

Gazing past him, she made a movement toward the door. He shook his head. “ This is my hour, Audrey. You may not leave the room, nor will Mistress Stagg enter it. I will not touch you, I will come no nearer to you. Stand there in silence, if you choose, or cover the sight of me from your eyes, while for my own ease, my own unhappiness, I say farewell.”

“Farewell!” she echoed. “Long ago, at Westover, that was said between you and me. . . . Why do you come like a ghost to keep me and peace apart ? ” He did not answer, and she locked her hands across her brow that burned beneath the heavy circlet of mock gems. “ Is it kind ? ” she demanded, with a sob in her voice. “ Is it kind to trouble me so, to keep me here ” —

“ Was I ever kind ? ” he asked. “ Since the night when I followed you, a child, and caught you from the ground when you fell between the corn rows, what kindness, Audrey ? ”

“ None! ” she answered, with sudden passion. “ Nor kindness then ! Why went you not some other way ? ”

“ Shall I tell you why I was there that night, — why I left my companions, and came riding back to the cabin in the valley ? ”

She uncovered her eyes. “I thought — I 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 en 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 growing quiet in the street beyond the curtained windows. One window was bare, but it gave only upon an unused nook of the garden where were merely the moonlight and some tall, leafless bushes.

“ I came back to Virginia,” he said, “ and I looked for and found you in the heart of a flowering wood. . . . All that you imagined me to be, Audrey, that was I not. Knight errant, paladin, king among men, — what irony, child, in that strange dream and infatuation of yours ! I was — I am — of my time and of myself, and he whom that day you thought me had not then nor afterwards form or being. I wish you to be perfect in this lesson, Audrey. Are you so ? ”

“Yes,” she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with slowly parting lips and a strange expression in her eyes.

He went on quietly, as before, every feature controlled to impassivity and his arms lightly folded : “ That is well. Between the day when I found you again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer, — a summer ! To me all the summers that ever I had or will have, — ten thousand summers ! Now tell me how I did in this wonderful summer.”

“ Ignobly,” she answered.

He bowed his head gravely. “ Ay, Audrey, it is a good word.” With a quick sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window stood there looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of bushes; but when he turned again to the room, his face and bearing were as impressive as before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of determination. “ And that evening by the river, when you fled from me to Hugon ” —

“ I had awaked,” she said, in a low voice. “ You were to me a stranger, and I feared you.”

“ And at Westover ? ”

“ A stranger.”

“Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when I wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and cruel letter, Audrey? ”

For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. “ A stranger,” she said.

“ The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at Fair View. And to-night, Audrey ? ”

“ A stranger,” she would have replied, but her voice broke. There were shadows under her eyes ; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent expectancy, as though she saw or heard one coming.

“ A stranger,” he acquiesced. “ A foreigner in your world of dreams and shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a gentleman of these latter days, compact, like his fellows, of strength and weakness ; now very wise, and now the mere fingerpost of folly ; set to travel his own path ; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who loves at last, — loves greatly, with a passion that shall ennoble. A stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell.”

Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear, from far away : “Farewell.”

“ How steadily do I stand here to say farewell! ” he said. “ Yet I am eaten of my passion. A fire burns me, a voice within me ever cries aloud. I am whirled in a resistless wind. . . . Ah, my love, the garden at Fair View ! The folded rose that will never bloom, the dial where linger the heavy hours, — the heavy, heavy, heavy hours ! ”

“ The garden,” she whispered. “ I smell the box. . . . The path was all in sunshine. So quiet, so hushed. ... I went a little farther, and I heard your voice where you sat and read — and read of Eloïsa. . . . Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn ! ”

“ The last time, the last farewell! ” he said. “ When the Golden Rose is far at sea, when the winds blow, when the stars drift below the verge, when the sea speaks, then may I forget you, may the vision of you pass ! Now, at Fair View, it passes not ; it dwells. . . . Night and day I behold you, the woman that I love, — the woman that I love in vain ! ”

“ The Golden Rose ! ” she answered. " The sea ! . . . Alas ! ”

Her voice had risen into a cry. The walls of the room were gone, the air pressed upon her heavily, the lights wavered, the waters were passing over her as they had passed that night of the witch’s hut. How far away the bank upon which he stood ! He spoke to her, and his voice came faintly, as from that distant shore or from the deck of a swiftly passing ship : “ And so it is good-by, sweetheart; for why should I stay in Virginia ? Ah, if you loved me, Audrey! But since it is not so, good-by, good-by! This time I ’ll not forget you, but I shall not come again. Good-by ! ”

Her lips moved, but there came no words. A light had dawned upon her face, her hand was lifted as though to stay a sound of music. Suddenly she turned toward him, swayed, and would have fallen but that his arm caught and upheld her. Her head was thrown back ; the soft masses of her wonderful hair brushed his cheek and shoulder ; her eyes looked past him, and a smile, pure and exquisite beyond expression, just redeemed her face from sadness. “ Good - morrow, Love ! ” she said, clearly and sweetly.

At the sound of her own words came to her the full realization and understanding of herself. With a cry she freed herself from his supporting arm, stepped backward and looked at him. The color surged over her face and throat, her eyelids drooped; while her name was yet upon his lips she answered with a broken cry of ecstasy and abandonment. A moment, and she was in his arms and their lips had met.

How quiet it was in the long room, where the myrtle candles gave out their faint perfume and the low fire leaped upon the hearth ! Thus for a time ; then, growing faint with her happiness, she put up protesting hands. He made her sit in the great chair, and knelt before her, all youth and fire, handsome, ardent, transfigured by his passion into such a lover as a queen might desire.

“ Hail, Sultana ! ” he said, smiling, his eyes upon her diadem. “ Now you are Arpasia again, and I am Moneses, and ready, ah, most ready, to die for you.”

She also smiled. “ Remember that I am to quickly follow you.”

“ When shall we marry ? ” he demanded. “ The garden cries out for you, my love, and I wish to hear your footstep in my house. It hath been a dreary house, filled with shadows, haunted by keen longings and vain regrets. Now the windows shall be flung wide and the sunshine shall pour in. Oh, your voice singing through the rooms, your foot upon the stairs ! ” He took her hands and put them to his lips. “ I love as men loved of old,” he said. “ I am far from myself and my times. When will you become my wife ? ”

She answered him simply, like the child that at times she seemed : “ When you will. But I must be Arpasia again tomorrow night. The Governor hath ordered the play repeated, and Margery Linn could not learn my part in time.”

He laughed, fingering the red silk of her hanging sleeve, feasting his eyes upon her dark beauty, so heightened and deepened in the year that had passed. “ Then play to them — and to me who shall watch you well — to-morrow night. But after that, to them never again ; only to me, Audrey, — to me when we walk in the garden at home, when we sit in the bookroom and the candles are lighted. That day in May when first you came into my garden, when first I showed you my house, when first I rowed you home with the sunshine on the water and the roses in your hair ! Love, love ! do you remember ? ”

“ Remember ? ” she answered, in a thrilling voice. “ When I am dead I shall yet remember.”

Rising from her chair, she stood looking down upon him who yet knelt. Her hands were in his clasp, and the smile upon his handsome face was very tender, for he loved her truly.

“ This dress that I wear is not mine,”

she said, “and this crown upon my head has no value. Last May Day I won a guinea, but the minister spent it; another that was given to me I gave away. I am so poor that there is naught in the world that is mine. My parents were humble folk, and I know not so much as their names. I have lived with people that are not well spoken of, and to the houses which you enter as an honored guest I have gone on their errands and as their servant. I am Darden’s Audrey. . . . The constable took Joan, the smith’s daughter, and at the Court House one day they whipped her; and Annis Ray, who lived at the Point, she must stand one morning at the church door with a paper in her hand; and Darden’s Audrey sat in Bruton church yonder, and the preacher spoke to her, and all the people turned to look. They say now that it was all a mistake and that she had done no wrong, but I think that the smirch will never leave her name. And now she is only a play actress. . . . Oh, one day you may be sorry, — I shall see it in your eyes ! Think well, think well of what you do ! ”

The smile had left his lips. Profoundly moved, he rose, and twice walked the length of the room before he returned to her side. “ I have thought,” he said. “ Months ago I thought, yonder in Marot’s ordinary, when I came to my senses, Audrey, when I remembered. ... I will not speak of repentance, atonement. I love you, — better than my life I love you ! ”

“ Life! ” she exclaimed. “ Life is very long. You love me now, but will you love me always ? Perhaps before the end you ’ll tire of me ; perhaps some day I shall come upon you unawares in the garden and see that you have counted the cost. Oh, if this, also, is a dream, and I must again awaken ! ”

“ It is no dream ! ” he cried. “ Audrey, Audrey, believe me now, at last and forever! ”

She smiled, and put out her hand to him with a gesture of her childhood. “ I believe,” she said. “ I will forget the things of the past; I will try to learn. You will be gentle with me, I know, and patient.”

“ God knows I must learn of you ! ” he answered. “ Oh, love, let be these things which matter not. The garden awaits us, and the long sunshine, and the opening roses.”

“ I will come when you want me,” she said. “ After to-morrow night I will come. . . . Oh, cannot you hear the river ? And the walls of the box will be freshly green, and the fruit trees all in bloom. The white leaves drift down upon the bench beneath the cherry tree. ... I will sit in the grass at your feet. Oh, I love you, have loved you long! ”

With her head upon his breast and his arm about her, they stood in the heart of the soft radiance of many candles. His face was bowed upon the dark wonder of her hair ; when at last he lifted his eyes, they chanced to fall upon the one uncurtained window. Audrey, feeling his slight, quickly controlled start, turned within his arm and also saw the face of Jean Hugon, pressed against the glass, staring in upon them.

Before Haward could reach the window the face was gone. A strip of moonlight, some leafless bushes ; beyond, the blank wall of the theatre, — that was all. Raising the sash, Haward leaned forth until he could see the garden at large. Moonlight still and cold, winding paths, and shadows of tree and shrub and vine, but no sign of living creature. He closed the window and drew the curtain across ; then turned again to Audrey. “ A phantom of the night,” he said, and laughed.

She was standing in the centre of the room, with her red dress gleaming in the candlelight. Her brow beneath its mock crown had no lines of care, and her beautiful eyes smiled upon him. “ I have no fear of it,” she said. “That is strange, is it not, when I have feared it for so long ? I have no other fear tonight than that I shall outlive your love for me.”

“ I will love you until the stars fall,” he said.

“ They are falling to-night. When you are without the door look up, and you may see one pass swiftly down the sky. Once I watched them from the dark river ” —

“ I will love you until the sun grows old,” he said. “ Through life and death, through heaven or hell, past the beating of my heart, while lasts my soul! . . . Audrey, Audrey ! ”

“ If it is so,” she answered, “ then all is well. Now kiss me good-night, for I hear Mistress Stagg’s voice. You will come again to-morrow ? And to-morrow night,— oh, to-morrow night I shall see only you, think of only you while I play ! Good-night, good-night.”

They kissed and parted, and Haward, a happy man, went with raised face through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot’s ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the philosopher’s stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last a thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the summum bonum was deathless love.

XXX.

THE LAST ACT.

Before eight of the clock, Mr. Stagg, peering from behind the curtain, noted with satisfaction that the house was filling rapidly ; upon the stroke of the hour it was crowded to the door, without which might be heard angry voices contending that there must be yet places for the buying. The musicians began to play, and more candles were lighted. There were laughter, talk, greetings from one part of the house to another, as much movement to and fro as could be accomplished in so crowded a space. The manners of the London playhouses were aped not unsuccessfully. To compare small things with great, it might have been Drury Lane upon a gala night. If the building was rude, yet it had no rival in the colonies; and if the audience was not so gay of hue, impertinent of tongue, or paramount in fashion as its London counterpart, yet it was composed of the rulers and makers of a land destined to greatness.

In the centre box sat his Excellency William Gooch, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, resplendent in velvet and gold lace ; and beside him Colonel Alexander Spotswood, arrived in town from Germanna that day, with his heart much set upon the passage, by the Assembly, of an act which would advantage his iron works. Colonel Byrd of Westover, Colonel Esmond of Castlewood, Colonel Carter, Colonel Page, and Colonel Ludwell were likewise of the Governor’s party, while seated or standing in the pit, or mingling with the ladies who made gay the boxes, were other gentlemen of consequence, — Councilors, Burgesses, owners of vast tracts of land, of ships and many slaves. Of their number, some were traveled men, and some had fought in England’s wars, and some had studied in her universities. Many were of gentle blood, sprung from worthy and venerable houses in that green island which with fondness they still called home, and many had made for themselves name and fortune, hewing their way to honor through a primeval forest of adversities. Lesser personages were not lacking, but crowded the gallery and invaded the pit. Old fighters of Indians were present, and masters of ships trading from the Spanish islands or from the ports of home. Rude lumbermen from Norfolk or the borders of the Dismal Swamp stared about them, while here and there showed the sadcolored coat of a minister, or the broad face of some Walloon from Spotswood’s settlement on the Rapidan, or the keener countenances of Frenchmen from Monacan-Town. The armorer from the Magazine elbowed a great proprietor from the eastern shore, while a famous guide and hunter, long and lean and brown, described to a magnate of Yorktown a buffalo capture in the far west, twenty leagues beyond the falls. Masters and scholars from William and Mary were there, with rangers, traders, sailors ashore, small planters, merchants, loquacious keepers of ordinaries, men — now free and with a stake in the land — who had come there as indentured servants, or as convicts, runaways, and fugitives from justice. In the upper gallery, where no payment was exacted, were many servants with a sprinkling of favorite mulatto or mustee slaves ; in the boxes the lustre and sweep of damask and brocade, light laughter, silvery voices, the flutter of fans; everywhere the vividness and animation of a strangely compounded society, where the lights were high and the shadows deep, and the colors laid by a master eye for contrast.

Nor did the conversation of so motley an assemblage lack a certain pictorial quality, a somewhat fantastic opulence or reference and allusion. Of what might its members speak while they waited for the drawing aside of the piece of baize which hung between them and an Oriental camp ? There was the staple of their wealth, a broad - leafed plant, the smoke of whose far-spread burning might have wrapped its native fields in a perpetual haze as of Indian summer ; and there was the warfare, bequeathed from generation to generation, against the standing armies of the forest, that subtle foe that slept not, retreated not, — whose vanguard, ever falling, ever showed unbroken ranks beyond. Trapper and trader and ranger might tell of trails through the wilderness vast and hostile, of canoes upon unknown waters, of beasts of prey, creatures screaming in the night-time through the ebony woods ; of Indian villages, also, and of red men who, in the fastnesses that were left them, took and tortured and slew after strange fashions. The white man, strong as the wind, drove the red man before his face like an autumn leaf; but he beckoned to the black man, and the black man came at his call. He came in numbers from a far country, and the manner of his coming was in chains. What he had to sell was valuable, but the purchase price came not into his hands. Of him also mention was made to-night. The master of the tall ship that had brought him into the James or the York, the dealer to whom he was consigned, the officer of the Crown who had cried him for sale, the planter who had bought him, the divine who preached that he was of a race accursed, — all were there, and all had interest in this merchandise. Others in the throng talked of ships both great and small, and the quaintness of their names, the golden flowers and golden women, the swift birds and beasts, the namesakes of Fortune or of Providence, came pleasantly upon the ear. The still-vexed Bermoothes, Barbadoes, and all the Indies were spoken of ; ports to the north and ports to the south, pirate craft and sunken treasure, a flight, a fight, a chase at sea. The men from Norfolk talked of the Great Dismal and its trees of juniper and cypress, the traders of trading, the masters from William and Mary of the humanities. The greater men, authoritative and easy, owners of flesh and blood and much land, holders of many offices and leaders of the people, paid their respects to horse-racing and cock-fighting, cards and dice ; to building, planting, the genteelest mode of living; and to public affairs both in Virginia and at home in England. Old friends, with oaths of hearty affection, and from opposite quarters of the house, addressed one another as Tom, or Ned, or Dick, while old enemies, finding themselves side by side, exchanged extremely civil speeches, and so put a keener edge upon their mutual disgust. In the boxes, where glowed the women, there was comfit talk, vastly pretty speeches, asseverations, denials, windy sighs, the politest oaths, whispering, talk of the play, of Mr. Haward of Fair View, of Darden’s Audrey.

Haward, entering the pit, made his way quietly to where a servant was holding for him a place. The fellow pulled his forelock in response to his master’s nod, then shouldered his way through the press to the ladder-like stairs that led to the upper gallery. Haward, standing at his ease, looked about him, recognizing this or that acquaintance with his slow, fine smile and an inclination of his head. He was much observed, and presently a lady leaned from her box, smiled, waved her fan, and slightly beckoned to him. It was young Madam Byrd, and Evelyn sat beside her.

Five minutes later, as Haward entered the box of the ladies of Westover, music sounded, the curtain was drawn back, and the play began. Upon the ruder sort in the audience silence fell at once : they that followed the sea, and they that followed the woods, and all the simple folk ceased their noise and gesticulation, and gazed spellbound at the pomp before them of rude scenery and indifferent actors. But the great ones of the earth talked on, attending to their own business in the face of Tamerlane and his victorious force. It was the fashion to do so, and in the play to-night the first act counted nothing, for Darden’s Audrey had naught to do with it. In the second act, when she entered as Arpasia, the entire house would fall quiet, staring and holding its breath.

Haward bent over Madam Byrd’s hand ; then, as that lady turned from him to greet Mr. Lee, addressed himself with grave courtesy to Evelyn, clothed in pale blue, and more lovely even than her wont. For months they had not met. She had written him one letter, — had written the night of the day upon which she had encountered Audrey in the Palace walk, — and he had answered it with a broken line of passionate thanks for unmerited kindness. Now as he bent over her she caught his wrist lightly with her hand, and her touch burned him through the lace of his ruffles. With her other hand she spread her fan. Mr. Lee’s shoulder knot also screened them while Mr. Grymes had engaged its owner’s attention, and pretty Madam Byrd was in animated conversation with the occupants of a neighboring box. " Is it well ? ” asked Evelyn, very low.

Haward’s answer was as low, and bravely spoken, with his eyes meeting her clear gaze, and her touch upon his wrist. “ For me, Evelyn, it is very well,” he said. “ For her, — may I live to make it well for her, forever and a day well for her ! She is to be my wife.”

“ I am glad, — very glad.”

“ You are a noble lady,” he answered. “ Once, long ago, I styled myself your friend, your equal. Now I know better my place and yours, and as from a princess I take your alms. For your letter — that letter, Evelyn, which told me what you thought, which showed me what to do — I humbly thank you.”

She let fall her hand from her silken lap, and watched with unseeing eyes the mimicry of life upon the stage before them, where Selima knelt to Tamerlane, and Moneses mourned for Arpasia. Presently she said again, “ I am glad ; ” and then, when they had kept silence for a while, “ You will live at Fair View ? ”

“ Ay,” he replied. “ I will make it well for her here in Virginia.”

“ You must let me help you,” she said. “ So old a friend as I may claim that as a right. To-morrow I may visit her, may I not? Now we must look at the players. When she enters there is no need to cry for silence. It comes of itself, and stays ; we watch her with straining eyes. Who is that man in a cloak, staring at us from the pit ? See, with the great peruke and the scar ! ”

Haward, bending, looked over the rail; then drew back, with a smile. “ A halfbreed trader,” he said, “ by name Jean Hugon. Something of a character.”

“ He looked strangely at us,” said Evelyn, “ with how haggard a face ! My scarf, Mr. Lee ? Thank you. Madam, have you the right of the matter from Kitty Page ? ”

The conversation became general, and soon, the act approaching its end, and other gentlemen pressing into the box which held so beautiful a woman, so great a catch, and so assured a belle as Mistress Evelyn Byrd, Haward arose and took his leave. To others of the brilliant company assembled in the playhouse he paid his respects; speaking deferentially to the Governor, gayly to his fellow Councilors and planters, and bowing low to many ladies. All this was in the interval between the acts. At the second parting of the curtain he resumed his former station in the pit. With intention he had chosen a section of it where were few of his own class. From the midst of the ruder sort he could watch her more freely, could exult at his ease in her beauty both of face and mind.

The curtain parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music. Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters. All the sound and fury of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience. Idle talk and laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on, — went on until there entered Darden’s Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet like a line of flame about her dark, flowing hair. The noise sank, voices of men and women died away ; for a moment the rustle of silk, the flutter of fans, continued, then this also ceased.

She stood before the Sultan, wideeyed, with a smile of scorn upon her lips ; then spoke in a voice low, grave, monotonous, charged like a passing bell with warning and with solemn woe. The house seemed to grow more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly forward : whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden’s Audrey, that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was regnant for an hour in this epitome of the world. The scene went on, and now it was to Moneses that she spoke. All the bliss and anguish of unhappy love sounded in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite smile, hung upon her every gesture. The curtain closed. From the throng that had watched her came a sound like a sigh, after which, slowly, tongues were loosened. An interval of impatient waiting, then the music again and the parting curtain, and Darden’s Audrey, — the girl who could so paint very love, very sorrow, very death ; the girl who had come strangely and by a devious path from the height and loneliness of the mountains to the level of this stage and the watching throng.

At the close of the fourth act of the play Haward left his station in the pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain, where, in the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to the Williamsburgh theatre, he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their satellites, together with a number of gentleman invaders from the front of the house. Mistress Stagg was there, and Selima, perched upon a table and laughing with the aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia. Haward drew the elder woman aside. “ I wish to see her,” he said, in a low voice, kindly but imperious. “ A moment only, good woman.”

With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her. “She hides from them always, she’s that strange a child; though indeed, sir, as sweet a young lady as a prince might wed ! This way, sir, — it’s dark ; make no noise.”

She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door. “ There, sir, for just five minutes ! I ’ll call her in time.”

The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the moonshine and the stillness. Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes were raised to the few silver stars. That mock crown which she wore sparkled palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress. At the opening of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress Stagg stood behind her. “ How bright the moon shines ! ” she said. “ A mocking bird should be singing, singing ! Is it time for Arpasia ? ”

As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms. “It is I, my love ! Ah, heart’s desire ! I worship you who gleam in the moonlight, with your crown like an aureole ” —

Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder. “ There were nights like this,” she said dreamily. “ If I were a little child again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home. I am tired. ... I would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise. The moon shines so bright ! I have been thinking” —

He bent his head and kissed her twice. “ Poor Arpasia ! Poor tired child ! Soon we shall go home, Audrey, — we two, my love, we two! ”

“ I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight,” she went on, her hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them. “ I was so ignorant. I never dreamed that I could wrong her . . . and when I awoke it was too late. And now I love you, — not the dream, but you. I know not what is right or wrong; I know only that I love. I think she understands, forgives. I love you so ! ” Her hands parted, and she stood from him, with her face raised to the balm of the night. “ I love you so,” she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver stillness of the garden. “ The moon up there, she knows it; and the stars, — not one has fallen to-night! Smell the flowers. Wait; I will pluck you hyacinths.”

They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave them into his hand. But when he had kissed them he would give them back, would fasten them himself in the folds of silk that rose and fell with her quickened breathing. He fastened them with a brooch which he took from the Mechlin at his throat. It was the golden horseshoe, the token that he had journeyed to the Endless Mountains.

“ Now I must go,” said Audrey. " They are calling for Arpasia. Follow me not at once. Good-night, good-night! Ah, I love you so! Remember always that I love you so ! ”

She was gone. In a few minutes he also reëntered the playhouse, and went to his former place, where, with few of his kind about him, he might watch her undisturbed. As he made his way with some difficulty through the throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a great peruke, who, despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an old roquelaure tawdrily laced ; also that the man was keeping stealthy pace with him, and that when he at last reached his station the cloaked figure fell into place immediately behind him.

Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head and thereby grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader. Did he so, the half-breed might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, what disturbance. To-morrow steps should be taken — Ah, the curtain !

The silence deepened, and men and women leaned forward, holding their breath. Darden’s Audrey, robed and crowned as Arpasia, sat alone in the Sultan’s tent, staring before her with wide dark eyes; then, slowly rising, began to speak. A sound, a sigh as of wonder, ran from the one to the other of the throng that watched her. Why did she look thus, with contracted brows, toward one quarter of the house ? What inarticulate words was she uttering?

What gesture, quickly controlled, did she make of ghastly fear and warning ? And now the familiar words came halting from her lips : —

With the closing words of her speech the audience burst into a great storm of applause. ’Gad, how she acts! The world hath seen no such paragon. What now ? Why, what is this ? She is leaving the stage —

It was quite in nature and the mode for an actress to pause in the middle of a scene to curtsy thanks for generous applause, to smile and throw a mocking kiss to pit and boxes, but Darden’s Audrey had hitherto not followed the fashion. Also, it was not uncustomary for some spoiled favorite of a player, between her scenes, to trip down the step or two from the stage to the pit, and mingle with the gallants there, laugh, jest, accept languishing glances, audacious comparisons, and such weighty trifles as gilt snuffboxes and rings of price. But this player had not heretofore honored the custom ; moreover, at present she was needed upon the stage. Bajazet must thunder, and she defy; without her the play could not move, and indeed the actors were now staring with the audience. What was it ? Why had she crossed the stage, and slowly, smilingly, beautiful and stately in her gleaming robes, descended those few steps which led to the pit ? What had she to do there, throwing smiling glances to right and left, lightly waving the folk, gentle and simple, from her path, pressing steadily onward to some unguessed-at goal? As though held by a spell they watched her, one and all, — Haward, Evelyn, the Governor, the man in the cloak, every soul in that motley assemblage. The wonder had not time to dull, for the moments were few between her final leave-taking of those boards which she had trodden supreme and the crashing and terrible chord which was to close the entertainment of this night.

Her face was raised to the boxes, and it seemed as though her dark eyes sought one there. Then suddenly she swerved. There were men between her and Haward. She raised her hand, and as at the command of a queen indeed they made for her a path. Haward, bewildered, started forward. But her cry was not to him. It was to the figure just behind him, — the cloaked figure whose hand grasped the hunting knife which, from the stage, as she had looked to where stood her lover, she had seen or divined. “Jean! Jean Hugon ! ” she cried.

Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant to stab to the heart. The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the half-raised arm and the gleaming steel. For many minutes the knife had been ready. The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who had stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die. Else Jean Hugon’s vengeance were not complete. No warning cried from the stage could have done aught but precipitate the deed, but now, for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he turned his back upon his prey.

In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the hand that held the knife. He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the house was in an uproar; and now Haward’s hands were at his throat, Haward’s voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he had built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was between him and his enemy! Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night in Fair View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so now. An access of furious strength came to him : he shook himself free. The knife gleamed in the air, descended. . . . He drew it from the bosom into which he had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who would else have sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the horror-stricken throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking in the tongue of the Monacans. Like a whirlwind he was gone from the house, and for a time none thought to follow him.

They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own room, and laid her upon the bed. Dr. Contesse came and went away, and came again. There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre. A man, mounting the doorstep, so that he might be heard of all, said clearly, “ She may live until dawn, — no longer.” Later, one came out of the house and asked that there might be quiet. The crowd melted away, but throughout the mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand odors of the spring, people stayed about the place, standing silent in the street or sitting on the garden benches.

In the room upstairs lay Darden’s Audrey, with crossed hands and head put slightly back. She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to care that it was so. Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting at the bedhead laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a light ringlet of her hair. Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but Haward, kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed. The form upon it was not more still than he. Mistress Stagg also stifled her sobs, for it seemed not a place for loud grief.

In the room below, amidst the tinsel frippery of small wares, waited others whose lives had touched the life that was ebbing away. Now and then one spoke in a hushed voice, a window was raised, a servant bringing in fresh candles trod too heavily; then the quiet closed in again. Late in the night came through the open windows a distant clamor, and presently a man ran down Palace Street, and as he ran called aloud some tidings.

MacLean, standing near the door, went softly out. When he returned, Colonel Byrd, sitting at the table, lifted inquiring brows. “ They took him in the reeds, near the Capitol landing,” said the Highlander grimly. " He ’s in the gaol now, but whether the people will leave him there ” —

The night wore on, grew old, passed into the cold melancholy of its latest hour. Darden’s Audrey sighed and stirred, and a little strength coming to her parting spirit, she opened her eyes and loosed her hands. The physician held to her lips a cordial, and she drank a very little. Haward lifted his head, and as Contesse passed him to set down the cup caught him by the sleeve. The other looked pityingly at the man into whose face had come a flush of hope. “ ’T is but the last flickering of the flame,” he said. “ Soon even the spark will vanish.”

Audrey began to speak. At first her words were wild and wandering, but, the mist lifting somewhat, she presently knew Mrs. Stagg, and liked to have her take the doctor’s place beside her. At Haward she looked doubtfully, with wide eyes, as scarce understanding. When he called her name, she faintly shook her head; then turned it slightly from him and veiled her eyes. It came to him with a terrible pang that the memory of their latest meetings was wiped from her brain, and that she was afraid of his broken words and the tears upon her hand.

When she spoke again, it was to ask for the minister. He was below, and Mistress Stagg went weeping down the stairs to summon him. He came, but would not touch the girl; only stood, with his hat in his hand, and looked down upon her with bleared eyes and a heavy countenance.

“ I am to die, am I not ? ” she asked, with her gaze upon him.

“ That is as God wills, Audrey,” he answered.

“ I am not afraid to die.”

“ You have no need,” he said, and going out of the room and down the stairs, made Stagg pour for him a glass of aqua vitæ.

Audrey closed her eyes, and when she opened them again there seemed to be many persons in the room. One was bending over her who at first she thought was Molly ; but soon she saw more clearly, and smiled at the pale and sorrowful face. The lady bent lower yet, and kissed her on the forehead. “ Audrey,” she said ; and Audrey, looking up at her, answered, “ Evelyn.”

When the dawn came glimmering in the windows, when the mist was cold and the birds were faintly heard, they raised her upon her pillows and wiped the death dew from her forehead. “ Audrey, Audrey, Audrey! ” cried Haward, and caught at her hands.

She looked at him with a faint and doubtful smile, remembering nothing of that hour in the room below, of those minutes in the moonlit garden. “ Gather the rosebuds while ye may,” she said; and then, “ The house is large. Good giant, eat me not! ”

The man upon his knees beside her uttered a cry, and began to speak to her, thickly, rapidly, words of agony, entreaty, and love. To-morrow and for all life habit would resume its sway, and lost love, remorse, and vain regrets put on a mask that was cold and fine and able to deceive. To - night there spoke the awakened heart. With her hands cold in his, with his agonized gaze upon the face from which the light was slowly passing, he poured forth his passion and his anguish, and she listened not. They moistened her lips, and one opened wide the window that gave upon the east.

“ It was all a dream,” she said; and again, “All a dream.” A little later, while the sky flushed slowly and the light of the candles grew pale, she began suddenly, and in a stronger voice, to speak as Arpasia : —

“ Forgotten ! ” cried Haward. " Audrey, Audrey, Audrey ! Go not from me! Oh, love, love, stay awhile ! ”

“ The mountains,” said Audrey clearly. “ The sun upon them, and the lifting mist.”

“ The mountains!” he cried. “Ay, we will go to them, Audrey, we will go together! Why, you are stronger, sweetheart! There is strength in your voice and your hands, and a light in your eyes ! Oh, if you will live, Audrey, I will make you happy ! You shall take me to the mountains, — we will go together, you and I! Audrey, Audrey ” —

But Audrey was gone already.

Mary Johnston.

( The end.)