"I will not sleep in this house to-night," said Audrey to herself. "If I can reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river. That will be well. I am not wanted here."
When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through the door into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe her, none to stay her. Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of the house, stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had sat in the sunshine, and came to the parlor windows. Close beneath one was a block of stone. After a moment's hesitation she stood upon this, and, pressing her face against the window pane, looked her last upon the room she had so lately left. A low fire upon the hearth, darkly illumined it: he sat by the table, with his arms outstretched and his head bowed upon them. Audrey dropped from the stone into the ever growing shadows, crossed the lawn, slipped below the bank, and took her way along the river edge to the long landing. When she was half way down its length, she saw that there was a canoe which she had not observed and that it held one man, who sat with his back to the shore. With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, then setting her lips went on; for the more she thought of having to see those two again, Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew her determination to commence her backward journey alone and at once.
She had almost reached the end of the wharf when the man in the boat stood up and faced her. It was Hugon. The dusk was not so great but that the two, the hunter and his quarry, could see each other plainly. The latter turned with the sob of a stricken deer, but the impulse to flight lasted not. Where might she go? Run blindly, north or east or west, through the fields of Westover? That would shortly lead to cowering in some wood or swamp while the feet of the searchers came momently nearer. Return to the house, stand at bay once more? With all her strength of soul she put this course from her.
The quick strife in her mind ended in her moving slowly, as though drawn by an invisible hand, to the edge of the wharf, above Hugon and his canoe. She did not wonder to see him there. Every word that Haward had spoken in the Westover parlor was burned upon her brain, and he had said that he had come up river with an Indian. This was the Indian, and to hunt her down those two had joined forces.
"Ma'm'selle Audrey," whispered the trader, staring as at a spirit.
"Yes, Jean Hugon," she answered, and looked down the glimmering reaches of the James, then at the slender canoe and the deep and dark water that flowed between the piles. In the slight craft, with that strong man the river for ally, she were safe as in a tower of brass.
"I am going home, Jean," she said. "Will you row me down the river to-night, and tell me as we go your stories of the woods and your father's glories in France? If you speak of other things I will drown myself, for I am tired of hearing them. In the morning we will stop at some landing for food, and then go on again. Let us hasten"—
The trader moistened his lips. "And him," he demanded hoarsely,—"that Englishman, that Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, who came to me and said, 'Half-breed, seeing that an Indian and a bloodhound have gifts in common, we will take up the quest together. Find her, though it be to lose her to me that same hour! And look that in our travels you try no foul play, for this time I go armed,'—what of him?"
Audrey waved her hand toward the house she had left. "He is there. Let us make haste." As she spoke she descended the steps, and, evading his eager hand, stepped into the canoe. He looked at her doubtfully, half afraid, so strange was it to see her sitting there, so like a spirit from the land beyond the sun, a revenant out of one of old Pierre's wild tales, had she come upon him. With quickened breath he loosed the canoe from its mooring and took up the paddle. A moment, and they were quit of the Westover landing and embarked upon a strange journey, during which hour after hour Hugon made wild love, and hour after hour Audrey opened not her lips. As the canoe went swiftly down the flood, lights sprung up in the house it was leaving behind. A man, rising from his chair with a heavy sigh, walked to the parlor window and looked out upon lawn and sky and river, but, so dark had it grown, saw not the canoe; thought only how deserted, how desolate and lonely, was the scene.