Audrey

"The truth!" she said slowly. "Always the truth was best! Well, then, take

the truth, and afterwards and forever and ever leave me alone! You have

been frank; why should not I, who, you say, am like no other woman, be so,

too? I will not marry you, because--because"--The crimson flowed over her

face and neck; then ebbed, leaving her whiter than before. She put her

hands, that still held the wild flowers, to her breast, and her eyes, dark

with pain, met his. "Had you loved me," she said proudly and quietly, "I

had been happy."

Haward stepped backwards until there lay between them a strip of sunny

earth. The murmur of the wind went on and the birds were singing, and yet

the forest seemed more quiet than death. "I could not guess," he said,

speaking slowly and with his eyes upon the ground. "I have spoken like a

brute. I beg your pardon."

"You might have known! you might have guessed!" she cried, with passion.

"But, you walk an even way; you choose nor high nor low; you look deep

into your mind, but your heart you keep cool and vacant. Oh, a very

temperate land! I think that others less wise than you may also be less

blind. Never speak to me of this day! Let it die as these blooms are dying

in this hot sunshine! Now let us walk to the coach and waken my father. I

have gathered flowers enough."

Side by side, but without speaking, they moved from shadow to sunlight,

and from sunlight to shadow, down the road to the great pine-tree. The

white and purple flowers lay in her hand and along her bended arm; from

the folds of her dress, of some rich and silken stuff, chameleon-like in

its changing colors, breathed the subtle fragrance of the perfume then

most in fashion; over the thin lawn that half revealed, half concealed

neck and bosom was drawn a long and glossy curl, carefully let to escape

from the waved and banded hair beneath the gypsy hat. Exquisite from head

to foot, the figure had no place in the unpruned, untrained, savage, and

primeval beauty of those woods. Smooth sward, with jets of water and

carven nymphs embowered in clipped box or yew, should have been its

setting, and not this wild and tangled growth, this license of bird and

beast and growing things. And yet the incongruous riot, the contrast of

profuse, untended beauty, enhanced the value of the picture, gave it

piquancy and a completer charm.

When they were within a few feet of the coach and horses and negroes, all

drowsing in the sunny road, Haward made as if to speak, but she stopped

him with her lifted hand. "Spare me," she begged. "It is bad enough as it

is, but words would make it worse. If ever a day might come--I do not

think that I am unlovely; I even rate myself so highly as to think that I

am worthy of your love. If ever the day shall come when you can say to me,

'Now I see that love is no tinted dream; now I ask you to be my wife

indeed,' then, upon that day--But until then ask not of me what you asked

back there among the violets. I, too, am proud"--Her voice broke.