Audrey

Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back,

unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentary

awakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought not

how else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But Mary Stagg

was a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably through life with

very little appeal to her head. The two or three young women--Oldfields

and Porters of the Virginian stage--who were under indentures to her

husband and herself found her as much their friend as mistress. Their

triumphs in the petty playhouse of this town of a thousand souls were

hers, and what woes they had came quickly to her ears. Now she would have

slipped her hand into Audrey's and have given garrulous comfort, as the

two passed alone through the churchyard gate and took their way up Palace

Street toward the small white house. But Audrey gave not her hand, did not

answer, made no moan, neither justified herself nor blamed another. She

did not speak at all, but after the first glance about her moved like a

sleepwalker.

When the house was reached she went up to the bedroom. Mistress Deborah,

entering stormily ten minutes later, found herself face to face with a

strange Audrey, who, standing in the middle of the floor, raised her hand

for silence in a gesture so commanding that the virago stayed her tirade,

and stood open-mouthed.

"I wish to speak," said the new Audrey. "I was waiting for you. There's a

question I wish to ask, and I'll ask it of you who were never kind to me."

"Never kind to her!" cried the minister's wife to the four walls. "And

she's been taught, and pampered, and treated more like a daughter than the

beggar wench she is! And this is my return,--to sit by her in church

to-day, and have all Virginia think her belonging to me"-"I belong to no one," said Audrey. "Even God does not want me. Be quiet

until I have done." She made again the gesture of pushing aside from face

and eyes the mist that clung and blinded. "I know now what they say," she

went on. "The preacher told me awhile ago. Last night a lady spoke to me:

now I know what was her meaning. Because Mr. Haward, who saved my life,

who brought me from the mountains, who left me, when he sailed away, where

he thought I would be happy, was kind to me when he came again after so

many years; because he has often been to the glebe house, and I to Fair

View; because last night he would have me go with him to the Governor's

ball, they think--they say out loud for all the people to hear--that

I--that I am like Joan, who was whipped last month at the Court House. But

it is not of the lies they tell that I wish to speak."