Haward, sitting at the table in Marot’s best room, wrote an answer to Audrey’s letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to Juba, to be given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro before he could reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a third.  The first had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much engaged, lightly and skillfully waving aside her request—­the only one she made—­that she might see him that day.  The second had been less wise.  The last told her that he would come at five o’clock to the summer-house in Mistress Stagg’s garden.

When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with his eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork of his chair.  His face was stern in repose:  a handsome, even a fine face, with a look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn and haggard of aspect.  When presently he roused himself and took up the letter that lay before him, the paper shook in his hand.  “Wine, Juba,” he said to the slave, who now reentered the room.  “And close the window; it is growing cold.”

There were but three lines between the “Mr. Haward” and “Audrey;” the writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,—­a child’s asking of a favor.  He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own that she had ever written.  Suddenly a wave of passionate tenderness took him; he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment many-threaded life and his own complex nature alike straightened to a beautiful simplicity.  He was the lover, merely; life was but the light and shadow through which moved the woman whom he loved.  He came back to himself, and tried to think it out, but could not.  Finally, with a weary impatience, he declined to think at all.  He was to dine at the Governor’s.  Evelyn would be there.

Only momentarily, in those days of early summer, had he wavered in his determination to make this lady his wife.  Pride was at the root of his being,—­pride and a deep self-will; though because they were so sunken, and because poisonous roots can flower most deceivingly, he neither called himself nor was called of others a proud and willful man.  He wished Evelyn for his wife; nay, more, though on May Day he had shown her that he loved her not, though in June he had offered her a love that was only admiring affection, yet in the past month at Westover he had come almost to believe that he loved her truly.  That she was worthy of true love he knew very well.  With all his strength of will, he had elected to forget the summer that lay behind him at Fair View, and to live in the summer that was with him at Westover.  His success had been gratifying; in the flush of it, he persuaded himself that a chamber of the heart had been locked forever, and the key thrown away.  And lo now! a touch, the sudden sight of a name, and the door had flown wide; nay, the very walls were rived away!  It was not a glance over the shoulder; it was full presence in the room so lately sealed.