It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and the concourse within the church was very great.  The clergy showed like a wedge of black driven into the bright colors with which nave and transept overflowed.  His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with the Council on either hand.  One member of that body was not present.  Well-nigh all Williamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward lay at Marot’s ordinary, ill of a raging fever.  Hooped petticoat and fragrant bodice found reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; significant glances traveled from every quarter of the building toward the tall pew where, collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress Evelyn Byrd beside her father.  All this was before the sermon.  When the minister of the day mounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great black sounding-board, gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, such was the genuine power of the man that every face was turned toward him, and throughout the building there fell a sudden hush.

Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that she listened,—­not at first.  She was there because she always went to church on Sunday.  It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay at home.  She had come from her room that morning with the same still face, the same strained and startled look about the eyes, that she had carried to it the night before.  Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept in, thought that she must have sat the night through beside the window.  Mistress Stagg, meeting her at the stairfoot with the tidings (just gathered from the lips of a passer-by) of Mr. Haward’s illness, thought that the girl took the news very quietly.  She made no exclamation, said nothing good or bad; only drew her hand across her brow and eyes, as though she strove to thrust away a veil or mist that troubled her.  This gesture she repeated now and again during the hour before church time.  Mistress Stagg heard no more of the ball this morning than she had heard the night before.  Something ailed the girl.  She was not sullen, but she could not or would not talk.  Perhaps, despite the fact of the Westover coach, she had not been kindly used at the Palace.  The ex-actress pursed her lips, and confided to her Mirabell that times were not what they once were.  Had she not, at Bath, been given a ticket to the Saturday ball by my Lord Squander himself?  Ay, and she had footed it, too, in the country dance, with the best of them, with captains and French counts and gentlemen and ladies of title,—­ay, and had gone down the middle with, the very pattern of Sir Harry Wildair!  To be sure, no one had ever breathed a word against her character; but, for her part, she believed no great harm of Audrey, either.  Look at the girl’s eyes, now:  they were like a child’s or a saint’s.

Mirabell nodded and looked wise, but said nothing.

When the church bells rang Audrey was ready, and she walked to church with Mistress Stagg much as, the night before, she had walked between the lilacs to the green door when the Westover coach had passed from her sight.  Now she sat in the church much as she had sat at the window the night through.  She did not know that people were staring at her; nor had she caught the venomous glance of Mistress Deborah, already in the pew, and aware of more than had come to her friend’s ears.