Mistress Stagg returned.  The hood was fitted, and its purchaser prepared to leave.  Audrey rose and made her curtsy, timidly, but with a quick, appealing motion of her hand.  Was not this the lady whom he loved, that people said he was to wed?  And had he not told her, long ago, that he would speak of her to Mistress Evelyn Byrd, and that she too would be her friend?  Last May Day, when the guinea was put into her hand, the lady’s smile was bright, her voice sweet and friendly.  Now, how changed!  In her craving for a word, a look, from one so near him, one that perhaps had seen him not an hour before; in her sad homage for the object of his love, she forgot her late repulse, and grew bold.  When Evelyn would have passed her, she put forth a trembling hand and began to speak, to say she scarce knew what; but the words died in her throat.  For a moment Evelyn stood, her head averted, an angry red staining neck and bosom and beautiful, down-bent face.  Her eyes half closed, the long lashes quivering against her cheek, and she smiled faintly, in scorn of the girl and scorn of herself.  Then, freeing her skirt from Audrey’s clasp, she passed in silence from the room.

Audrey stood at the window, and with wide, pained eyes watched her go down the path.  Mistress Stagg was with her, talking volubly, and Evelyn seemed to listen with smiling patience.  One of the bedizened negroes opened the chair door; the lady entered, and was borne away.  Before Mistress Stagg could reenter her house Audrey had gone quietly up the winding stair to the little whitewashed room, where she found the minister’s wife astir and restored to good humor.  Her sleep had helped her; she would go down at once and see what Mary was at.  Darden, too, was coming as soon as the meeting at the church had adjourned.  After dinner they would walk out and see the town, until which time Audrey might do as she pleased.  When she was gone, Audrey softly shut herself in the little room, and lay down upon the bed, very still, with her face hidden in her arm.

With twelve of the clock came Darden, quite sober, distrait in manner and uneasy of eye, and presently interrupted Mistress Stagg’s flow of conversation by a demand to speak with his wife alone.  At that time of day the garden was a solitude, and thither the two repaired, taking their seats upon a bench built round a mulberry-tree.

“Well?” queried Mistress Deborah bitterly.  “I suppose Mr. Commissary showed himself vastly civil?  I dare say you’re to preach before the Governor next Sunday?  Or maybe they’ve chosen Bailey?  He boasts that he can drink you under the table!  One of these fine days you’ll drink and curse and game yourself out of a parish!”

Darden drew figures on the ground with his heavy stick.  “On such a fine day as this,” he said, in a suppressed voice, and looked askance at the wife whom he beat upon occasion, but whose counsel he held in respect.

She turned upon him.  “What do you mean?  They talk and talk, and cry shame,—­and a shame it is, the Lord knows!  But it never comes to anything”—­