“I love you,—­love you greatly,” he continued.  “I will conquer,—­conquer and atone!  But now, poor tired one, I let you go.  Sleep, Audrey, sleep and dream again.”  He held open the door for her, and stood aside with bent head.

She passed him; then turned, and after a moment of silence spoke to him with a strange and sorrowful stateliness.  “You think, sir,” she said, “that I have something to forgive?”

“Much,” he answered,—­“very much, Audrey.”

“And you wish my forgiveness?”

“Ay, Audrey, your forgiveness and your love.”

“The first is mine to give,” she said.  “If you wish it, take it.  I forgive you, sir.  Good-by.”

“Good-night,” he answered.  “Audrey, good-night.”

“Good-by,” she repeated, and slowly mounting the broad staircase passed from his sight.

It was dark in the upper hall, but there was a great glimmer of sky, an opal space to mark a window that gave upon the sloping lawn and pallid river.  The pale light seemed to beckon.  Audrey went not on to her attic room, but to the window, and in doing so passed a small half-open door.  As she went by she glanced through the aperture, and saw that there was a narrow stairway, built for the servants’ use, winding down to a door in the western face of the house.

Once at the open window, she leaned forth and looked to the east and the west.  The hush of the evening had fallen; the light was faint; above the last rose flush a great star palely shone.  All was quiet, deserted; nothing stirring on the leaf-carpeted slope; no sound save the distant singing of the slaves.  The river lay bare from shore to shore, save where the Westover landing stretched raggedly into the flood.  To its piles small boats were tied, but there seemed to be no boatmen; wharf and river appeared as barren of movement and life as did the long expanse of dusky lawn.

“I will not sleep in this house to-night,” said Audrey to herself.  “If I can reach those boats unseen, I will go alone down the river.  That will be well.  I am not wanted here.”

When she arrived at the foot of the narrow stair, she slipped through the door into a world all dusk and quiet, where was none to observe her, none to stay her.  Crouching by the wall she crept to the front of the house, stole around the stone steps where, that morning, she had sat in the sunshine, and came to the parlor windows.  Close beneath one was a block of stone.  After a moment’s hesitation she stood upon this, and, pressing her face against the window pane, looked her last upon the room she had so lately left.  A low fire upon the hearth, darkly illumined it:  he sat by the table, with his arms outstretched and his head bowed upon them.  Audrey dropped from the stone into the ever growing shadows, crossed the lawn, slipped below the bank, and took her way along the river edge to the long landing.  When she was half way down its length, she saw that there was a canoe which she had not observed and that it held one man, who sat with his back to the shore.  With a quick breath of dismay she stood still, then setting her lips went on; for the more she thought of having to see those two again, Evelyn and the master of Fair View, the stronger grew her determination to commence her backward journey alone and at once.