Audrey

Evelyn, hearing footsteps across the floor of the attic room above her own

bedchamber, arose and set wide the door; then went back to her chair by

the window that looked out upon green grass and party-colored trees and

long reaches of the shining river. "Come here, if you please," she called

to Audrey, as the latter slowly descended the stair from the room where,

half asleep, half awake, she had lain since morning.

Audrey entered the pleasant chamber, furnished with what luxury the age

afforded, and stood before the sometime princess of her dreams. "Will you

not sit down?" asked Evelyn, in a low voice, and pointed to a chair.

"I had rather stand," answered Audrey. "Why did you call me? I was on my

way"-The other's clear eyes dwelt upon her. "Whither were you going?"

"Out of your house," said Audrey simply, "and out of your life."

Evelyn folded her hands in her silken lap, and looked out upon river and

sky and ceaseless drift of colored leaves. "You can never go out of my

life," she said. "Why the power to vex and ruin was given you I do not

know, but you have used it. Why did you run away from Fair View?"

"That I might never see Mr. Haward again," answered Audrey. She held her

head up, but she felt the stab. It had not occurred to her that hers was

the power to vex and ruin; apparently that belonged elsewhere.

Evelyn turned from the window, and the two women, the princess and the

herdgirl, regarded each other. "Oh, my God!" cried Evelyn. "I did not know

that you loved him so!"

But Audrey shook her head, and spoke with calmness: "Once I loved and knew

it not, and once I loved and knew it. It was all in a dream, and now I

have waked up." She passed her hand across her brow and eyes, and pushed

back her heavy hair. It was a gesture that was common to her. To Evelyn it

brought a sudden stinging memory of the ballroom at the Palace; of how

this girl had looked in her splendid dress, with the roses in her hair; of

Haward's words at the coach door. She had not seen him since that night.

"I am going a long way," continued Audrey. "It will be as though I died. I

never meant to harm you."

The other gazed at her with wide, dry eyes, and with an unwonted color in

her cheeks. "She is beautiful," thought Audrey; then wondered how long she

must stay in this room and this house. Without the window the trees

beckoned, the light was fair upon the river; in the south hung a cloud,

silver-hued, and shaped like two mighty wings. Audrey, with her eyes upon

the cloud, thought, "If the wings were mine, I would reach the mountains

to-night."