She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat stood
up and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but that the
two, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. The latter
turned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse to flight lasted
not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through the
fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood or
swamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to the
house, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she put this
course from her.
The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though drawn
by an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and his canoe.
She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward had spoken in
the Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had said that he had
come up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and to hunt her down
those two had joined forces.
"Ma'm'selle Audrey," whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit.
"Yes, Jean Hugon," she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches of
the James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water that
flowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong man the
river for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass.
"I am going home, Jean," she said. "Will you row me down the river
to-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your father's
glories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown myself, for
I am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at some landing
for food, and then go on again. Let us hasten"-The trader moistened his lips. "And him," he demanded hoarsely,--"that
Englishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and said,
'Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in common,
we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to lose her to
me that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no foul play, for
this time I go armed,'--what of him?"
Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. "He is there. Let us
make haste." As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his eager
hand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half afraid, so
strange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit from the land
beyond the sun, a revenant out of one of old Pierre's wild tales, had
she come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed the canoe from its
mooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they were quit of the
Westover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, during which hour
after hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour Audrey opened not her
lips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, lights sprung up in the
house it was leaving behind. A man, rising from his chair with a heavy
sigh, walked to the parlor window and looked out upon lawn and sky and
river, but, so dark had it grown, saw not the canoe; thought only how
deserted, how desolate and lonely, was the scene.