Audrey

"Do you remember last May Day?" asked Evelyn, in a voice scarcely above a

whisper. "He and I, sitting side by side, watched your running, and I

praised you to him. Then we went away, and while we gathered flowers on

the road to Williamsburgh he asked me to be his wife. I said no, for he

loved me not as I wished to be loved. Afterward, in Williamsburgh, he

spoke again.... I said, 'When you come to Westover;' and he kissed my

hand, and vowed that the next week should find him here." She turned once

more to the window, and, with her chin in her hand, looked out upon the

beauty of the autumn. "Day by day, and day by day," she said, in the same

hushed voice, "I sat at this window and watched for him to come. The weeks

went by, and he came not. I began to hear talk of you. Oh, I deny not that

it was bitter!"

"Oh me! oh me!" cried Audrey. "I was so happy, and I thought no harm."

"He came at last," continued Evelyn. "For a month he stayed here, paying

me court. I was too proud to speak of what I had heard. After a while I

thought it must have been an idle rumor." Her voice changed, and with a

sudden gesture of passion and despair she lifted her arms above her head,

then clasped and wrung her hands. "Oh, for a month he forgot you! In all

the years to come I shall have that comfort: for one little month, in the

company of the woman whom, because she was of his own rank, because she

had wealth, because others found her fair and honored her with heart as

well as lip, he wished to make his wife,--for that short month he forgot

you! The days were sweet to me, sweet, sweet! Oh, I dreamed my dreams!...

And then we were called to Williamsburgh to greet the new Governor, and he

went with us, and again I heard your name coupled with his.... There was

between us no betrothal. I had delayed to say yes to his asking, for I

wished to make sure,--to make sure that he loved me. No man can say he

broke troth with me. For that my pride gives thanks!"

"What must I do?" said Audrey to herself. "Pain is hard to bear."

"That night at the ball," continued Evelyn, "when, coming down the stair,

I saw you standing beside him ... and after that, the music, and the

lights, and you dancing with him, in your dark beauty, with the flowers in

your hair ... and after that, you and I in my coach and his face at the

window!... Oh, I can tell you what he said! He said: 'Good-by,

sweetheart.... The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and

the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for

Audrey.'"