“’T is I, not you, who have wronged this lady,” said Haward, after a pause.  “I have, I hope, her forgiveness.  Is this the fault that keeps you from me?”

Audrey answered not, but leaned against the window and looked at the cloud in the south that was now an amethyst island.  Haward went closer to her.  “Is it,” he said, “is it because in my mind I sinned against you, Audrey, because I brought upon you insult and calumny?  Child, child!  I am of the world.  That I did all this is true, but now I would not purchase endless bliss with your least harm, and your name is more to me than my own.  Forgive me, Audrey, forgive the past.”  He bowed his head as he stood before her.

Audrey gazed at him with wide, dry eyes whose lids burned.  A hot color had risen to her cheek; at her heart was a heavier aching, a fuller knowledge of loss.  “There is no past,” she said.  “It was a dream and a lie.  There is only to-day ... and you are a stranger.”

The purple cloud across the river began to darken; there came again the lonely cry of the bird; in the house quarter the slaves were singing as they went about their work.  Suddenly Audrey laughed.  It was sad laughter, as mocking and elfin and mirthless a sound as was ever heard in autumn twilight.  “A stranger!” she repeated.  “I know you by your name, and that is all.  You are Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, while I—­I am Darden’s Audrey!”

She curtsied to him, so changed, so defiant, so darkly beautiful, that he caught his breath to behold her.  “You are all the world to me!” he cried.  “Audrey, Audrey!  Look at me, listen to me!”

He would have approached her, would have seized her hand, but she waved him back.  “Oh, the world!  We must think of that!  What would they say, the Governor and the Council, and the people who go to balls, and all the great folk you write to in England,—­what would they say if you married me?  Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, the richest man in Virginia!  Mr. Marmaduke Haward, the man of taste, the scholar, the fine gentleman, proud of his name, jealous of his honor!  And Darden’s Audrey, who hath gone barefoot on errands to most houses in Fair View parish!  Darden’s Audrey, whom the preacher pointed out to the people in Bruton church!  They would call you mad; they would give you cap and bells; they would say, ’Does he think that he can make her one of us?—­her that we turned and looked long upon in Bruton church, when the preacher called her by a right name’”—­

“Child, for God’s sake!” cried Haward.

“There is the lady, too,—­the lady who left us here together!  We must not forget to think of her,—­of her whose picture you showed me at Fair View, who was to be your wife, who took me by the hand that night at the Palace.  There is reproach in her eyes.  Ah, do you not think the look might grow, might come to haunt us?  And yourself!  Oh, sooner or later regret and weariness would come to dwell at Fair View!  The lady who walks in the garden here is a fine lady and a fit mate for a fine gentleman, and I am a beggar maid and no man’s mate, unless it be Hugon’s.  Hugon, who has sworn to have me in the house he has built!  Hugon, who would surely kill you”—­