Audrey

"Ay, that is best!" agreed the storekeeper. "Warned, he can take the long

way home, and Hugon and this other may be dealt with at his leisure. Come,

my girl; there's no time to lose."

They left behind them the creek, the blooming dooryard, the small white

house, and the gentle Quakeress. The woods received them, and they came

into a world of livid greens and grays dashed here and there with

ebony,--a world that, expectant of the storm, had caught and was holding

its breath. Save for the noise of their feet upon dry leaves that rustled

like paper, the wood was soundless. The light that lay within it, fallen

from skies of iron, was wild and sinister; there was no air, and the heat

wrapped them like a mantle. So motionless were all things, so fixed in

quietude each branch and bough, each leaf or twig or slender needle of the

pine, that they seemed to be fleeing through a wood of stone, jade and

malachite, emerald and agate.

They hurried on, not wasting breath in speech. Now and again MacLean

glanced aside at the girl, who kept beside him, moving as lightly as

presently would move the leaves when the wind arose. He remembered certain

scurrilous words spoken in the store a week agone by a knot of purchasers,

but when he looked at her face he thought of the Highland maiden whose

story he had told. As for Audrey, she saw not the woods that she loved,

heard not the leaves beneath her feet, knew not if the light were gold or

gray. She saw only a horse and rider riding from Williamsburgh, heard only

the rapid hoofbeats. All there was of her was one dumb prayer for the

rider's safety. Her memory told her that it was no great distance to the

road, but her heart cried out that it was so far away,--so far away! When

the wood thinned, and they saw before them the dusty strip, pallid and

lonely beneath the storm clouds, her heart leaped within her; then grew

sick for fear that he had gone by. When they stood, ankle-deep in the

dust, she looked first toward the north, and then to the south. Nothing

moved; all was barren, hushed, and lonely.

"How can we know? How can we know?" she cried, and wrung her hands.

MacLean's keen eyes were busily searching for any sign that a horseman had

lately passed that way. At a little distance above them a shallow stream

of some width flowed across the way, and to this the Highlander hastened,

looked with attention at the road-bed where it emerged from the water,

then came back to Audrey with a satisfied air. "There are no hoof-prints,"

he said. "No marks upon the dust. None can have passed for some hours."