Audrey

"The rock was high," said a voice, "and the pool beneath was deep and

dark. Here are the flowers that waved from the rock and threw colored

shadows upon the pool."

The girl shrank as from a sudden and mortal danger. Her lips trembled, her

eyes half closed, and with a hurried and passionate gesture she rose from

her chair, thrust from her the scarlet blooms, and with one lithe movement

of her body put between her and the window the heavy writing table. The

minister laid by his sum in arithmetic.

"Ha, Hugon, dog of a trader!" he cried. "Come in, man. Hast brought the

skins? There's fire-water upon the table, and Audrey will be kind. Stay to

dinner, and tell us what lading you brought down river, and of your

kindred in the forest and your kindred in Monacan-Town."

The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread

his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was

dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and

restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse,

much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of

terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that

of the white.

"I will not come in now," said the voice again. "I am going in my boat to

the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I will

come back to dinner. May I not, ma'm'selle?"

The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the

window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were

watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and

her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let her

pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader

could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might

do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of

the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her

ears, she did not have to hear.

At the trader's announcement that his present path led past the house,

she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, with

her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine that

struck high against the wall.

"I will come again," said the voice without, and the apparition was gone

from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening,

and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a long

breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it with

trembling hands.