Since the afternoon beneath the willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging her to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream memories, had somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude for the part which he himself had played or was playing, in the drama of her life. Walking in the minister's orchard, sitting in the garden or upon the terrace of Fair View house, drifting on the sunset river, he waved that aside, and went on to teach her another lesson. The teaching was exquisite; but when the lesson for the day was over, and he was alone, he sat with one whom he despised. The learning was exquisite; it was the sweetest song, but she knew not its name, and the words were in a strange tongue. She was Audrey, that she knew; and he,—he was the plumed knight, who, for the lack of a better listener, told her gracious tales of love, showed her how warm and beautiful was this world that she sometimes thought so sad, sang to her sweet lines that poets had made. Over and through all she thought she read the name of the princess. She had heard him say that with the breaking of the heat he should go to Westover, and one day, early in summer, he had shown her the miniature of Evelyn Byrd. Because she loved him blindly, and because he was wise in his generation, her trust in him was steadfast as her native hills, large as her faith in God. Now it was sweet beneath her tongue to be able to tell one that was his friend how worthy of all friendship—nay, all reverence—he was. She spoke simply, but with that strange power of expression which nature had given her. Gestures with her hands, quick changes in the tone of her voice, a countenance that gave ample utterance to the moment's thought,—as one morning in the Fair View library she had brought into being that long dead Eloïsa whose lines she spoke, so now her auditor of to-day thought that he saw the things of which she told.
She had risen, and was standing in the wild light, against the background of the forest that was breathless, as if it too listened, "And so he brought me safely to this land," she said. "And so he left me here for ten years, safe and happy, he thought. He has told me that all that while he thought of me as safe and happy. That I was not so,—why, that was not his fault! When he came back I was both. I have never seen the sunshine so bright or the woods so fair as they have been this summer. The people with whom I live are always kind to me now,—that is his doing. And ah! it is because he would not let Hugon scare or harm me that that wicked Indian waits for him now beyond the bend in the road." At the thought of Hugon she shuddered, and her eyes began to widen. "Have we not been here a long time?" she cried. "Are you sure? Oh, God! perhaps he has passed!"
"No, no," answered MacLean, with his hand upon her arm. "There is no sign that he has done so. It is not late; it is that heavy cloud above our heads that has so darkened the air. Perhaps he has not left Williamsburgh at all: perhaps, the storm threatening, he waits until to-morrow."
From the cloud above came a blinding light and a great crash of thunder,—the one so intense, the other so tremendous, that for a minute the two stood as if stunned. Then, "The tree!" cried Audrey. The great pine, blasted and afire, uprooted itself and fell from them like a reed that the wind has snapped. The thunder crash, and the din with which the tree met its fellows of the forest, bore them down, and finally struck the earth from which it came, seemed an alarum to waken all nature from its sleep. The thunder became incessant, and the wind suddenly arising the forest stretched itself and began to speak with no uncertain voice. MacLean took his seat again upon the log, but Audrey slipped into the road, and stood in the whirling dust, her arm raised above her eyes, looking for the horseman whose approach she could not hope to hear through the clamor of the storm. The wind lifted her long hair, and the rising dust half obscured her form, bent against the blast. On the lonesome road, in the partial light, she had the seeming of an apparition, a creature tossed like a ball from the surging forest. She had made herself a world, and she had become its product. In all her ways, to the day of her death, there was about her a touch of mirage, illusion, fantasy. The Highlander, imaginative like all his race, and a believer in things not of heaven nor of earth, thought of spirits of the glen and the shore.
There was no rain as yet; only the hurly-burly of the forest, the white dust cloud, and the wild commotion overhead. Audrey turned to MacLean, watching her in silence. "He is coming!" she cried. "There is some one with him. Now, now he is safe!"
CHAPTER XV
HUGON SPEAKS HIS MIND
MacLean sprang up from the log, and, joining her, saw indeed two horsemen galloping toward them, their heads bent and riding cloaks raised to shield them from the whirlwind of dust, dead leaves, and broken twigs. He knew Haward's powerful steed Mirza, but the other horse was strange.
The two rode fast. A moment, and they were splashing through the stream; another, and the horses, startled by Audrey's cry and waving arms and by the sudden and violent check on the part of their riders, were rearing and curveting across the road. "What the devil!" cried one of the horsemen. "Imp or sprite, or whatever you are, look out! Haward, your horse will trample her!"
But Audrey, with her hand on Mirza's bridle, had no fears. Haward stared at her in amazement. "Child, what are you doing here? Angus, you too!" as the storekeeper advanced. "What rendezvous is this? Mirza, be quiet!"