Audrey

"I must away," said the Highlander. "Haward waits for me at Williamsburgh.

To-morrow, dearer to me than Deirdre to Naos! I will come again."

Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, Truelove's

quiet home. "And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at Williamsburgh?" said the

Quakeress. "Last third day he met my father and me on the Fair View road,

and checked his horse and spoke to us. He is changed."

"Changed indeed!" quoth the Highlander. "A fire burns him, a wind drives

him; and yet to the world, last night"--He paused.

"Last night?" said Truelove.

"He had a large company at Marot's ordinary," went on the other. "There

were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition or

fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, smiling,

full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew the fires

beneath."

The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: "He

drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and that, he

rose and drank to 'Audrey,' and threw his wineglass over his shoulder. He

hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves her honorably,

seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. He gathered the

company together last evening that, as his guests, the highest officers,

the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go with him to the theatre to

see her for the first time as a player. Being what they were, and his

guests, and his passion known, he would insure for her, did she well or

did she ill, order, interest, decent applause." MacLean broke off with a

short, excited laugh. "It was not needed,--his mediation. But he could not

know that; no, nor none of us. True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the

powers of this strangely found actress of theirs that they were training

to do great things, but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there

was curiosity enough, but 'twas on Haward's account.... Well, he drank to

her, standing at the head of the table at Marot's ordinary, and the glass

crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play."

"Yes, yes!" cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how

great a vanity was under discussion.

"'Twas 'Tamerlane,' the play that this traitorous generation calls for

every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor--a Whig as rank as

Argyle--had ordered it again for this week. 'Tis a cursed piece of slander

that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his late Majesty of

France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I was, I had not sat

there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and given those

flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and angered until

she entered. Then I forgot."