“If ever hurt came to you through me, I would drown myself in the river yonder.  And then I thought—­lying awake last night—­that perhaps I had been troublesome to you, those days at Fair View, and that was why you had not come to see the minister, as you had said you would.”  The dark eyes were pitifully eager; the hand that went to her heart trembled more and more.  “It is not as it was in the mountains,” she said.  “I am older now, and safe, and—­and happy.  And you have many things to do and to think of, and many friends—­gentlemen and beautiful ladies—­to go to see.  I thought—­last night—­that when I saw you I would ask your pardon for not remembering that the mountains were years ago; for troubling you with my matters, sir; for making too free, forgetting my place”—­Her voice sank; the shamed red was in her cheeks, and her eyes, that she had bravely kept upon his face, fell to the purple and gold blooms in her lap.

Haward rose from the grass, and, with his back to the gray hole of the willow, looked first at the veil of leaf and stem through which dimly showed house, orchard, and blue sky, then down upon the girl at his feet.  Her head was bent and she sat very still, one listless, upturned hand upon the grass beside her, the other lying as quietly among her flowers.

“Audrey,” he said at last, “you shame me in your thoughts of me.  I am not that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me.  Being what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; that I think of you and wish to see you.  And Hugon, having possibly some care for his own neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish notion, which you must put from you.  Now listen.”  He knelt beside her and took her hand in his.  “After a while, perhaps, when the weather is cooler, and I must open my house and entertain after the fashion of the country; when the new Governor comes in, and all this gay little world of Virginia flocks to Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go with the rest, and must think of gold and place and people,—­why, then, maybe, our paths will again diverge, and only now and then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey!  But now in these midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down.  I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy.  Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together.  It is only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View.  I will see you often, little maid, and you must dream no more as you dreamed last night.”  He paused; his voice changed, and he went on as to himself:  “It is a lonely land, with few to see and none to care.  I will drift with the summer, making of it an idyl, beautiful,—­yes, and innocent!  When autumn comes I will go to Westover.”

Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word.  A wonderful smile, so bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face.  “Westover!” she said to herself.  “That is where the princess lives.”