Audrey told him, but it seemed to her that he was not listening.  When she had come to an end of the minister’s grievances, she sat, with downcast eyes, waiting for him to speak, wishing that he would not look at her so steadily.  She meant never to show him her heart,—­never, never; but beneath his gaze it was hard to keep her cheek from burning, her lip from quivering.

At last he spoke:  “Would it please you, Audrey, if I should save this man from his just deserts?”

Audrey raised her eyes.  “He and Mistress Deborah are all my friends,” she said.  “The glebe house is my home.”

Deep sadness spoke in voice and eye.  The shaft of light, moving, had left her in the outer shadow:  she sat there with a listless grace; with a dignity, too, that was not without pathos.  There had been a forlorn child; there had been an unfriended girl; there was now a woman, for Life to fondle or to wreak its rage upon.  The change was subtle; one more a lover or less a lover than Haward might not have noted it.  “I will petition the Commissary to-night,” he said, “the Governor to-morrow.  Is your having in friends so slight as you say, little maid?”

Oh, he could reach to the quick!  She was sure that he had not meant to accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed guilty of it.  “No, no!” she cried.  “I have had a friend”—­Her voice broke, and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being quiveringly eager to be gone.  She had asked that which she was bidden to ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was far better that she should go.  Better far for him to think her dull and thankless as a stone than see—­than see—­

When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing breath. “‘I have had a friend,’ Audrey?” he asked.  “Why not ’I have a friend’?”

“Why not?” thought Audrey.  “Of course he would think, why not?  Well, then”—­

“I have a friend,” she said aloud.  “Have you not been to me the kindest friend, the most generous”—­She faltered, but presently went on, a strange courage coming to her.  She had turned slightly toward him, though she looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed through the high window.  It fell now upon her face.  “It is a great thing to save life,” she said.  “To save a soul alive, how much greater!  To have kept one soul in the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, tenderness, God; to have given it bread to eat where it sat among the stones, water to drink where all the streams were dry,—­oh, a king might be proud of that!  And that is what you have done for me....  When you sailed away, so many years ago, and left me with the minister and his wife, they were not always kind.  But I knew that you thought them so, and I always said to myself, ’If he knew, he would be sorry for me.’  At last I said, ’He is sorry for me; there is the sea, and he cannot come, but