Haward smiled. "Child, you have conned your lesson well. Leave the words
of the book, and tell me in your own language what his reverence wants."
Audrey told him, but it seemed to her that he was not listening. When she
had come to an end of the minister's grievances, she sat, with downcast
eyes, waiting for him to speak, wishing that he would not look at her so
steadily. She meant never to show him her heart,--never, never; but
beneath his gaze it was hard to keep her cheek from burning, her lip from
quivering.
At last he spoke: "Would it please you, Audrey, if I should save this man
from his just deserts?"
Audrey raised her eyes. "He and Mistress Deborah are all my friends," she
said. "The glebe house is my home."
Deep sadness spoke in voice and eye. The shaft of light, moving, had left
her in the outer shadow: she sat there with a listless grace; with a
dignity, too, that was not without pathos. There had been a forlorn child;
there had been an unfriended girl; there was now a woman, for Life to
fondle or to wreak its rage upon. The change was subtle; one more a lover
or less a lover than Haward might not have noted it. "I will petition the
Commissary to-night," he said, "the Governor to-morrow. Is your having in
friends so slight as you say, little maid?"
Oh, he could reach to the quick! She was sure that he had not meant to
accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed
guilty of it. "No, no!" she cried. "I have had a friend"--Her voice broke,
and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being
quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to
ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was
far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and
thankless as a stone than see--than see-When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing
breath. "'I have had a friend,' Audrey?" he asked. "Why not 'I have a
friend'?"
"Why not?" thought Audrey. "Of course he would think, why not? Well,
then"-"I have a friend," she said aloud. "Have you not been to me the kindest
friend, the most generous"--She faltered, but presently went on, a strange
courage coming to her. She had turned slightly toward him, though she
looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed through the high
window. It fell now upon her face. "It is a great thing to save life," she
said. "To save a soul alive, how much greater! To have kept one soul in
the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, tenderness, God; to have
given it bread to eat where it sat among the stones, water to drink where
all the streams were dry,--oh, a king might be proud of that! And that is
what you have done for me.... When you sailed away, so many years ago, and
left me with the minister and his wife, they were not always kind. But I
knew that you thought them so, and I always said to myself, 'If he knew,
he would be sorry for me.' At last I said, 'He is sorry for me; there is
the sea, and he cannot come, but he knows, and is sorry.' It was
make-believe,--for you thought that I was happy, did you not?--but it
helped me very much. I was only a child, you know, and I was so very
lonely. I could not think of mother and Molly, for when I did I saw them
as--as I had seen them last. The dark scared me, until I found that I
could pretend that you were holding my hand, as you used to do when night
came in the valley. After a while I had only to put out my hand, and yours
was there waiting for it. I hope that you can understand--I want you to
know how large is my debt.... As I grew, so did the debt. When I was a
girl it was larger than when I was a child. Do you know with whom I have
lived all these years? There is the minister, who comes reeling home from
the crossroads ordinary, who swears over the dice, who teaches cunning
that he calls wisdom, laughs at man and scarce believes in God. His hand
is heavy; this is his mark." She held up her bruised wrist to the light,
then let the hand drop. When she spoke of the minister, she made a gesture
toward the shadows growing ever thicker and darker in the body of the
house. It was as though she saw him there, and was pointing him out.
"There is the minister's wife," she said, and the motion of her hand again
accused the shadows. "Oh, their roof has sheltered me; I have eaten of
their bread. But truth is truth. There is the schoolmaster with the
branded hands. He taught me, you know. There is"--she was looking with
wide eyes into the deepest of the shadows--"there is Hugon!" Her voice
died away. Haward did not move or speak, and for a minute there was
silence in the dusky playhouse. Audrey broke it with a laugh, soft, light,
and clear, that came oddly upon the mood of the hour. Presently she was
speaking again: "Do you think it strange that I should laugh? I laughed to
think I have escaped them all. Do you know that they call me a dreamer?
Once, deep in the woods, I met the witch who lives at the head of the
creek. She told me that I was a dream child, and that all my life was a
dream, and I must pray never to awake; but I do not think she knew, for
all that she is a witch. They none of them know,--none, none! If I had not
dreamed, as they call it,--if I had watched, and listened, and laid to
heart, and become like them,--oh, then I should have died of your look
when at last you came! But I 'dreamed;' and in that long dream you, though
you were overseas, you showed me, little by little, that the spirit is not
bond, but free,--that it can walk the waves, and climb to the sunset and
the stars. And I found that the woods were fair, that the earth was fair
and kind as when I was a little child. And I grew to love and long for
goodness. And, day by day, I have had a life and a world where flowers
bloomed, and the streams ran fresh, and there was bread indeed to eat. And
it was you that showed me the road, that opened for me the gates!"