Audrey

That could hardly be, for these things seemed to frighten her. At times one could see

her shrink and grow pale at some great clapping or loud "Again!" And only

upon the stage did the town behold her. She rarely went abroad, and at the

small white house in Palace Street she was denied to visitors. True, 'twas

the way to keep upon curiosity the keenest edge, to pique interest and

send the town to the playhouse as the one point of view from which the

riddle might be studied. But wisdom such as this could scarce be expected

of the girl. Given, then, that 'twas not her vanity which kept her

Darden's Audrey, what was it? Was not Mr. Haward of Fair View rich,

handsome, a very fine gentleman? Generous, too, for had he not sworn, as

earnestly as though he expected to be believed, that the girl was pure

innocence? His hand was ready to his sword, nor were men anxious to incur

his cold enmity, so that the assertion passed without open challenge.

He was mad for her,--that was plain enough. And she,--well she's woman and

Darden's Audrey, and so doubly an enigma. In the mean time, to-night she

plays Monimia, and her madness makes you weep, so sad it is, so hopeless,

and so piercing sweet.

In this new world that was so strange to her Darden's Audrey bore herself

as best she might. While it was day she kept within the house, where the

room that in September she had shared with Mistress Deborah was now for

her alone. Hour after hour she sat there, book in hand, learning how those

other women, those women of the past, had loved, had suffered, had fallen

to dusty death. Other hours she spent with Mr. Charles Stagg in the long

room downstairs, or, when Mistress Stagg had customers, in the theatre

itself.

As in the branded schoolmaster chance had given her a teacher

skilled in imparting knowledge, so in this small and pompous man, who

beneath a garb of fustian hugged to himself a genuine reverence and

understanding of his art, she found an instructor more able, perhaps, than

had been a greater actor. In the chill and empty playhouse, upon the

narrow stage where, sitting in the September sunshine, she had asked of

Haward her last favor, she now learned to speak for those sisters of her

spirit, those dead women who through rapture, agony, and madness had sunk

to their long rest, had given their hands to death and lain down in a

common inn. To Audrey they were real; she was free of their company. The

shadows were the people who lived and were happy; who night after night

came to watch a soul caught in the toils, to thunder applause when death

with rude and hasty hands broke the net, set free the prisoner.