Hugon was coming, for she heard the twigs upon the path from the glebe house snap beneath his tread.  She did not turn or move; she would see him soon enough, hear him soon enough.  Presently his black eyes would look into hers; it would be bird and snake over again, and the bird was tired of fluttering.  The bird was so tired that when a hand was laid on her shoulder she did not writhe herself from under its touch; instead only shuddered slightly, and stared with wide eyes at the flowing river.  But the hand was white, with a gleaming ring upon its forefinger, and it stole down to clasp her own.  “Audrey,” said a voice that was not Hugon’s.

The girl flung back her head, saw Haward’s face bending over her, and with a loud cry sprang to her feet.  When he would have touched her again she recoiled, putting between them a space of green grass.  “I have hunted you for an hour,” he began.  “At last I struck this path.  Audrey”—­

Audrey’s hands went to her ears.  Step by step she moved backward, until she stood against the trunk of a blood-red oak.  When she saw that Haward followed her she uttered a terrified scream.  At the sound and at the sight of her face he stopped short, and his outstretched hand fell to his side.  “Why, Audrey, Audrey!” he exclaimed.  “I would not hurt you, child.  I am not Jean Hugon!”

The narrow path down which he had come was visible for some distance as it wound through field and copse, and upon it there now appeared another figure, as yet far off, but moving rapidly through the fading light toward the river.  “Jean!  Jean!  Jean Hugon!” cried Audrey.

The blood rushed to Haward’s face.  “As bad as that!” he said, beneath his breath.  Going over to the girl, he took her by the hands and strove to make her look at him; but her face was like marble, and her eyes would not meet his, and in a moment she had wrenched herself free of his clasp.  “Jean Hugon!  Help, Jean Hugon!” she called.

The half-breed in the distance heard her voice, and began to run toward them.

“Audrey, listen to me!” cried Haward.  “How can I speak to you, how explain, how entreat, when you are like this?  Child, child, I am no monster!  Why do you shrink from me thus, look at me thus with frightened eyes?  You know that I love you!”

She broke from him with lifted hands and a wailing cry.  “Let me go!  Let me go!  I am running through the corn, in the darkness, and I hope to meet the Indians!  I am awake,—­oh, God!  I am wide awake!”

With another cry, and with her hands shutting out the sound of his voice, she turned and fled toward the approaching trader.  Haward, after one deep oath and an impetuous, quickly checked movement to follow the flying figure, stood beneath the oak and watched that meeting:  Hugon, in his wine-colored coat and Blenheim wig, fierce, inquisitive, bragging of what he might do; the girl suddenly listless, silent, set only upon an immediate return through the fields to the glebe house.