Involuntarily the trader pushed toward her, past the man whom he meant to stab to the heart.  The action, dragging his cloak aside, showed the half-raised arm and the gleaming steel.  For many minutes the knife had been ready.  The play was nearly over, and she must see this man who had stolen her heart, this Haward of Fair View, die.  Else Jean Hugon’s vengeance were not complete.  For his own safety the maddened half-breed had ceased to care.  No warning cried from the stage could have done aught but precipitate the deed, but now for the moment, amazed and doubtful, he turned his back upon his prey.

In that moment the Audrey of the woods, a creature lithe and agile and strong of wrist as of will, had thrown herself upon him, clutching the hand that held the knife.  He strove to dash her from him, but in vain; the house was in an uproar; and now Haward’s hands were at his throat, Haward’s voice was crying to that fair devil, that Audrey for whom he had built his house, who was balking him of revenge, whose body was between him and his enemy!  Suddenly he was all savage; as upon a night in Fair View house he had cast off the trammels of his white blood, so now.  An access of furious strength came to him; he shook himself free; the knife gleamed in the air, descended....  He drew it from the bosom into which he had plunged it, and as Haward caught her in his arms, who would else have sunk to the floor, the half-breed burst through the horror-stricken throng, brandishing the red blade and loudly speaking in the tongue of the Monacans.  Like a whirlwind he was gone from the house, and for a time none thought to follow him.

[Illustration:  “JEAN!  JEAN HUGON!”]

They bore her into the small white house, and up the stair to her own room, and laid her upon the bed.  Dr. Contesse came and went away, and came again.  There was a crowd in Palace Street before the theatre.  A man mounting the doorstep so that he might be heard of all, said clearly, “She may live until dawn,—­no longer.”  Later, one came out of the house and asked that there might be quiet.  The crowd melted away, but throughout the mild night, filled with the soft airs and thousand odors of the spring, people stayed about the place, standing silent in the street or sitting on the garden benches.

In the room upstairs lay Darden’s Audrey, with crossed hands and head put slightly back.  She lay still, upon the edge of death, nor seemed to care that it was so.  Her eyes were closed, and at intervals one sitting at the bed head laid touch upon her pulse, or held before her lips a slight ringlet of her hair.  Mary Stagg sat by the window and wept, but Haward, kneeling, hid his face in the covering of the bed.  The form upon it was not more still than he; Mistress Stagg, also, stifled her sobs, for it seemed not a place for loud grief.