“You are so sweet and gay to-night,” said Haward to Audrey.  “Take your pleasure, child, for it is a sad world, and the blight will fall.  I love to see you happy.”

“Happy!” she answered.  “I am not happy!”

“You are above them all in beauty,” he went on.  “There is not one here that’s fit to tie your shoe.”

“Oh me!” cried Audrey.  “There is the lady that you love, and that loves you.  Why did she look at me so, in the hall yonder?  And yesterday, when she came to Mistress Stagg’s, I might not touch her or speak to her!  You told me that she was kind and good and pitiful.  I dreamed that she might let me serve her when she came to Fair View.”

“She will never come to Fair View,” he said, “nor shall I go again to Westover.  I am for my own house now, you brown enchantress, and my own garden, and the boat upon the river.  Do you remember how sweet were our days in June?  We will live them over again, and there shall come for us, besides, a fuller summer”—­

“It is winter now,” said Audrey, with a sobbing breath, “and cold and dark!  I do not know myself, and you are strange.  I beg you to let me go away.  I wish to wash off this paint, to put on my own gown.  I am no lady; you do wrong to keep me here.  See, all the company are frowning at me!  The minister will hear what I have done and be angry, and Mistress Deborah will beat me.  I care not for that, but you—­Oh, you have gone far away,—­as far as Fair View, as far as the mountains!  I am speaking to a stranger”—­

In the dance their raised hands met again.  “You see me, you speak to me at last,” he said ardently.  “That other, that cold brother of the snows, that paladin and dream knight that you yourself made and dubbed him me,—­he has gone, Audrey; nay, he never was!  But I myself, I am not abhorrent to you?”

“Oh,” she answered, “it is all dark!  I cannot see—­I cannot understand”—­

The time allotted to minuets having elapsed, the musicians after a short pause began to play an ancient, lively air, and a number of ladies and gentlemen, young, gayly dressed, and light of heart as of heels, engaged in a country dance.  When they were joined by Mr. Marmaduke Haward and his shameless companion, there arose a great rustling and whispering.  A young girl in green taffeta was dancing alone, wreathing in and out between the silken, gleaming couples, coquetting with the men by means of fan and eyes, but taking hands and moving a step or two with each sister of the dance.  When she approached Audrey, the latter smiled and extended her hand, because that was the way the lady nearest her had done.  But the girl in green stared coldly, put her hand behind her, and, with the very faintest salute to Mr. Marmaduke Haward, danced on her way.  For one moment the smile died on Audrey’s lips; then it came resolutely back, and she held her head high.