Audrey

They had risen and now with her head upon his breast and his arm about

her, they stood in the heart of the soft radiance of many candles. His

face was bowed upon the dark wonder of her hair; when at last he lifted

his eyes, they chanced to fall upon the one uncurtained window. Audrey,

feeling his slight, quickly controlled start, turned within his arm and

also saw the face of Jean Hugon, pressed against the glass, staring in

upon them.

Before Haward could reach the window the face was gone. A strip of

moonlight, some leafless bashes, beyond, the blank wall of the

theatre,--that was all. Raising the sash, Haward leaned forth until he

could see the garden at large. Moonlight still and cold, winding paths,

and shadows of tree and shrub and vine, but no sign of living creature. He

closed the window and drew the curtain across, then turned again to

Audrey. "A phantom of the night," he said, and laughed.

She was standing in the centre of the room, with her red dress gleaming

in the candlelight. Her brow beneath its mock crown had no lines of care,

and her wonderful eyes smiled upon him. "I have no fear of it," she

answered. "That is strange, is it not, when I have feared it for so long?

I have no other fear to-night than that I shall outlive your love for me."

"I will love you until the stars fall," he said.

"They are falling to-night. When you are without the door look up, and you

may see one pass swiftly down the sky. Once I watched them from the dark

river"-"I will love you until the sun grows old," he said. "Through life and

death, through heaven or hell, past the beating of my heart, while lasts

my soul!... Audrey, Audrey!"

"If it is so," she answered, "then all is well. Now kiss me good-night,

for I hear Mistress Stagg's voice. You will come again to-morrow? And

to-morrow night,--oh, to-morrow night I shall see only you, think of only

you while I play! Good-night, good-night."

They kissed and parted, and Haward, a happy man, went with raised face

through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot's

ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the

philosopher's stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last a

thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the summum

bonum was deathless love.