A white hand was laid upon the Colonel’s arm.  “I came to make sure that you were not harsh with the poor creature,” said Evelyn’s pitying voice.  “There is so much misery.  Where is she?  Ah!”

To gain at last his prisoner’s attention, the constable struck her lightly across the shoulders with his cane.  “Get up!” he cried impatiently.  “Get up and make your curtsy!  Ecod, I wish I’d left you in Hunter’s Pond!”

Audrey rose, and turned her face, not to the justice of the peace and arbiter of the fate of witches, but to Evelyn, standing above her,—­Evelyn, slighter, paler, than she had been at Williamsburgh, but beautiful in her colored, fragrant silks and the air that was hers of sweet and mournful distinction.  Now she cried out sharply, while “That girl again!” swore the Colonel, beneath his breath.

Audrey did as she had been told, and made her curtsy.  Then, while father and daughter stared at her, the gentleman very red and biting his lip, the lady marble in her loveliness, she tried to speak, to ask them to let her go, but found no words.  The face of Evelyn, at whom alone she looked, wavered into distance, gazing at her coldly and mournfully from miles away.  She made a faint gesture of weariness and despair; then sank down at Evelyn’s feet, and lay there in a swoon.

CHAPTER XXV

TWO WOMEN

Evelyn, hearing footsteps across the floor of the attic room above her own bedchamber, arose and set wide the door; then went back to her chair by the window that looked out upon green grass and party-colored trees and long reaches of the shining river.  “Come here, if you please,” she called to Audrey, as the latter slowly descended the stair from the room where, half asleep, half awake, she had lain since morning.

Audrey entered the pleasant chamber, furnished with what luxury the age afforded, and stood before the sometime princess of her dreams.  “Will you not sit down?” asked Evelyn, in a low voice, and pointed to a chair.

“I had rather stand,” answered Audrey.  “Why did you call me?  I was on my way”—­

The other’s clear eyes dwelt upon her.  “Whither were you going?”

“Out of your house,” said Audrey simply, “and out of your life.”

Evelyn folded her hands in her silken lap, and looked out upon river and sky and ceaseless drift of colored leaves.  “You can never go out of my life,” she said.  “Why the power to vex and ruin was given you I do not know, but you have used it.  Why did you run away from Fair View?”

“That I might never see Mr. Haward again,” answered Audrey.  She held her head up, but she felt the stab.  It had not occurred to her that hers was the power to vex and ruin; apparently that belonged elsewhere.

Evelyn turned from the window, and the two women, the princess and the herdgirl, regarded each other.  “Oh, my God!” cried Evelyn.  “I did not know that you loved him so!”