Audrey

"No," answered MacLean, with a darkened face. "Tell him I will come to the

great house to-night."

In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master of

his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he did not

row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, kept on

downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and russet and

gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran past Haward's

garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face looked up its

silver reaches.

The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay upon the

river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw

through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue

sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the

wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold

its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a

fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it

was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst

of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his

native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the daoine shi'

the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they

dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they

issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race.

A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting

on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of

figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light,

with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the

Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that

it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far

off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when,

after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and

stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her,

standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that

she moved or looked his way.

"How long since you left the glebe house?" he demanded abruptly.

"The sun was high," she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of

surprise at finding herself no longer alone. "I have been sitting here for

a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this afternoon.... There

is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down here he might not find

me very soon."