There was a coach at the gates, and Mr. Grymes, who awhile ago had told him that he had a message to deliver, was at the coach door.  Evelyn had her hand upon his arm, and her voice was speaking to him from as far away as across the river.  “I am leaving the ball,” it said, “and I will take the girl in my coach to the place where she is staying.  Promise me that you will not go back to the house yonder; promise me that you will go away with Mr. Grymes, who is also weary of the ball”—­

“Oh,” said Mr. Grymes lightly, “Mr. Haward agrees with me that Marot’s best room, cool and quiet, a bottle of Burgundy, and a hand at piquet are more alluring than the heat and babel we have left.  We are going at once, Mistress Evelyn.  Haward, I propose that on our way to Marot’s we knock up Dr. Contesse, and make him free of our company.”

As he spoke, he handed into the coach the lady in flowered damask, who had held up her head, but said no word, and the lady in rose-colored brocade, who, through the length of the ballroom and the hall and the broad walk where people passed and repassed, had kept her hand in Audrey’s, and had talked, easily and with smiles, to the two attending gentlemen.  He shut to the coach door, and drew back, with a low bow, when Haward’s deeply flushed, handsome face appeared for a moment at the lowered glass.

“Art away to Westover, Evelyn?” he asked.  “Then ’t is ’Good-by, sweetheart!’ for I shall not go to Westover again.  But you have a fair road to travel,—­there are violets by the wayside; for it is May Day, you know, and the woods are white with dogwood and purple with the Judas-tree.  The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for Audrey.”  His eyes passed the woman whom he would have wed, and rested upon her companion in the coach.  “Thou fair dryad!” he said.  “Two days hence we will keep tryst beneath the beech-tree in the woods beyond the glebe house.”

The man beside him put a hand upon his shoulder and plucked him back, nor would look at Evelyn’s drawn and whitened face, but called to the coachman to go on.  The black horses put themselves into motion, the equipage made a wide turn, and the lights of the Palace were left behind.

Evelyn lodged in a house upon the outskirts of the town, but from the Palace to Mistress Stagg’s was hardly more than a stone’s throw.  Not until the coach was drawing near the small white house did either of the women speak.  Then Audrey broke into an inarticulate murmur, and stooping would have pressed her cheek against the hand that had clasped hers only a little while before.  But Evelyn snatched her hand away, and with a gesture of passionate repulsion shrank into her corner of the coach.  “Oh, how dare you touch me!” she cried.  “How dare you look at me, you serpent that have stung me so!” Able to endure no longer, she suddenly gave way to angry laughter.  “Do you think I