It was a night that was thronged with stars, and visited by a whispering wind.  Haward, walking rapidly along the almost deserted Nicholson Street, lifted his burning forehead to the cool air and the star-strewn fields of heaven.  Coming to the gate by which he had entered the afternoon before, he raised the latch and passed into the garden.  By now his fever was full upon him, and it was a man scarce to be held responsible for his actions that presently knocked at the door of the long room where, at the window opening upon Palace Street, Audrey sat with Mistress Stagg and watched the people going to the ball.

CHAPTER XIX

THE GOVERNOR’S BALL

For an hour it had been very quiet, very peaceful, in the small white house on Palace Street.  Darden was not there; for the Commissary had sent for him, having certain inquiries to make and a stern warning to deliver.  Mistress Deborah had been asked to spend the night with an acquaintance in the town, so she also was out and gone.  Mistress Stagg and Audrey kept the lower rooms, while overhead Mr. Charles Stagg, a man that loved his art, walked up and down, and, with many wavings of a laced handkerchief and much resort to a gilt snuffbox, reasoned with Plato of death and the soul.  The murmur of his voice came down to the two women, and made the only sound in the house.  Audrey, sitting by the window, her chin upon her hand and her dark hair shadowing her face, looked out upon the dooryard and the Palace Street beyond.  The street was lit by torches, and people were going to the ball in coaches and chariots, on foot and in painted chairs.  They went gayly, light of heart, fine of person, a free and generous folk.  Laughter floated over to the silent watcher, and the torchlight gave her glimpses of another land than her own.

Many had been Mistress Stagg’s customers since morning, and something had she heard besides admiration of her wares and exclamation at her prices.  Now, as she sat with some gay sewing beneath her nimble fingers, she glanced once and again at the shadowed face opposite her.  If the look was not one of curiosity alone, but had in it an admixture of new-found respect; if to Mistress Stagg the Audrey of yesterday, unnoted, unwhispered of, was a being somewhat lowlier than the Audrey of to-day, it may be remembered for her that she was an actress of the early eighteenth century, and that fate and an old mother to support had put her in that station.

The candles beneath their glass shades burned steadily; the house grew very quiet; the noises of the street lessened and lessened, for now nearly all of the people were gone to the ball.  Audrey watched the round of light cast by the nearest torch.  For a long time she had watched it, thinking that he might perhaps cross the circle, and she might see him in his splendor.  She was still watching when he knocked at the garden door.