Audrey

The letter ended abruptly, as though the writer's strength were exhausted.

Audrey read it through, then with indifference gave it back to Evelyn. "It

is true,--what he says?" whispered the latter, crumpling the paper in her

hand.

Audrey gazed up at her with wide, tearless eyes. "Yes, it is true. There

was no need for you to use those words to me in the coach, that

night,--though even then I did not understand. There is no reason why you

should fear to touch me."

Her head sank upon her arm. In the parlor below the singing came to an

end, but the harpsichord, lightly fingered, gave forth a haunting melody.

It was suited to the afternoon: to the golden light, the drifting leaves,

the murmurs of wind and wave, without the window: to the shadows, the

stillness, and the sorrow within the room. Evelyn, turning slowly toward

the kneeling figure, of a sudden saw it through a mist of tears. Her

clasped hands parted; she bent and touched the bowed head. Audrey looked

up, and her dark eyes made appeal. Evelyn stooped lower yet; her tears

fell upon Audrey's brow; a moment, and the two, cast by life in the

selfsame tragedy, were in each other's arms.

"You know that I came from the mountains," whispered Audrey. "I am going

back. You must tell no one; in a little while I shall be forgotten."

"To the mountains!" cried Evelyn. "No one lives there. You would die of

cold and hunger. No, no! We are alike unhappy: you shall stay with me here

at Westover."

She rose from her knees, and Audrey rose with her. They no longer clasped

each other,--that impulse was past,--but their eyes met in sorrowful

amity. Audrey shook her head. "That may not be," she said simply. "I must

go away that we may not both be unhappy." She lifted her face to the cloud

in the south, "I almost died last night. When you drown, there is at first

fear and struggling, but at last it is like dreaming, and there is a

lightness.... When that came I thought, 'It is the air of the

mountains,--I am drawing near them.' ... Will you let me go now? I will

slip from the house through the fields into the woods, and none will

know"-But Evelyn caught her by the wrist. "You are beside yourself! I would

rouse the plantation; in an hour you would be found. Stay with me!"

A knock at the door, and the Colonel's secretary, a pale and grave young

man, bowing on the threshold. He was just come from the attic room, where

he had failed to find the young woman who had been lodged there that

morning. The Colonel, supposing that by now she was recovered from her

swoon and her fright of the night before, and having certain questions to

put to her, desired her to descend to the parlor. Hearing voices in

Mistress Evelyn's room-"Very well, Mr. Drew," said the lady. "You need not wait. I will myself

seek my father with--with our guest."