As she rose from the step Haward caught her in his arms.  “It is I, my love!  Ah, heart’s desire!  I worship you who gleam in the moonlight, with your crown like an aureole”—­

Audrey rested against him, clasping her hands upon his shoulder.  “There were nights like this,” she said dreamily.  “If I were a little child again, you could lift me in your arms and carry me home, I am tired ...  I would that I needed not to go back to the glare and noise.  The moon shines so bright!  I have been thinking”—­

He bent his head and kissed her twice.  “Poor Arpasia!  Poor tired child!  Soon we shall go home, Audrey,—­we two, my love, we two!”

“I have been thinking, sitting here in the moonlight,” she went on, her hands clasped upon his shoulder, and her cheek resting on them.  “I was so ignorant.  I never dreamed that I could wrong her ... and when I awoke it was too late.  And now I love you,—­not the dream, but you.  I know not what is right or wrong; I know only that I love.  I think she understands—­forgives.  I love you so!” Her hands parted, and she stood from him with her face raised to the balm of the night.  “I love you so,” she repeated, and the low cadence of her laugh broke the silver stillness of the garden.  “The moon up there, she knows it.  And the stars,—­not one has fallen to-night!  Smell the flowers.  Wait, I will pluck you hyacinths.”

They grew by the doorstep, and she broke the slender stalks and gave them into his hand.  But when he had kissed them he would give them back, would fasten them himself in the folds of silk, that rose and fell with her quickened breathing.  He fastened them with a brooch which he took from the Mechlin at his throat.  It was the golden horseshoe, the token that he had journeyed to the Endless Mountains.

“Now I must go,” said Audrey.  “They are calling for Arpasia.  Follow me not at once.  Good-night, good-night!  Ah, I love you so!  Remember always that I love you so!”

She was gone.  In a few minutes he also reentered the playhouse, and went to his former place where, with none of his kind about him, he might watch her undisturbed.  As he made his way with some difficulty through the throng, he was aware that he brushed against a man in a great peruke, who, despite the heat of the house, was wrapped in an old roquelaure tawdrily laced; also that the man was keeping stealthy pace with him, and that when he at last reached his station the cloaked figure fell into place immediately behind him.

Haward shrugged his shoulders, but would not turn his head, and thereby grant recognition to Jean Hugon, the trader.  Did he so, the half-breed might break into speech, provoke a quarrel, make God knew what assertion, what disturbance.  To-morrow steps should be taken—­Ah, the curtain!