Putting out his hand he drew her down upon the leaves; and she sat beside him, still and happy, ready to answer him when he asked her this or that, readier yet to sit in blissful, dreamy silence.  She was as pure as the flower which she held in her hand, and most innocent in her imaginings.  This was a very perfect knight, a great gentleman, good and pitiful, that had saved her from the Indians when she was a little girl, and had been kind to her,—­ah, so kind!  In that dreadful night when she had lost father and mother and brother and sister, when in the darkness her childish heart was a stone for terror, he had come, like God, from the mountains, and straightway she was safe.  Now into her woods, from over the sea, he had come again, and at once the load upon her heart, the dull longing and misery, the fear of Hugon, were lifted.  The chaplet which she laid at his feet was not loosely woven of gay-colored flowers, but was compact of austerer blooms of gratitude, reverence, and that love which is only a longing to serve.  The glamour was at hand, the enchanted light which breaks not from the east or the west or the north or the south was upon its way; but she knew it not, and she was happy in her ignorance.

“I am tired of the city,” he said.  “Now I shall stay in Virginia.  A longing for the river and the marshes and the house where I was born came upon me”—­

“I know,” she answered.  “When I shut my eyes I see the cabin in the valley, and when I dream it is of things which happen in a mountainous country.”

“I am alone in the great house,” he continued, “and the floors echo somewhat loudly.  The garden, too; beside myself there is no one to smell the roses or to walk in the moonlight.  I had forgotten the isolation of these great plantations.  Each is a province and a despotism.  If the despot has neither kith nor kin, has not yet made friends, and cares not to draw company from the quarters, he is lonely.  They say that there are ladies in Virginia whose charms well-nigh outweigh their dowries of sweet-scented and Oronoko.  I will wed such an one, and have laughter in my garden, and other footsteps than my own in my house.”

“There are beautiful ladies in these parts,” said Audrey.  “There is the one that gave me the guinea for my running yesterday.  She was so very fair.  I wished with all my heart that I were like her.”

“She is my friend,” said Haward slowly, “and her mind is as fair as her face.  I will tell her your story.”

The gilded streak upon the earth beneath the beech had crept away, but over the ferns and weeds and flowering bushes between the slight trees without the ring the sunshine gloated.  The blue of the sky was wonderful, and in the silence Haward and Audrey heard the wind whisper in the treetops.  A dove moaned, and a hare ran past.

“It was I who brought you from the mountains and placed you here,” said Haward at last.  “I thought it for the best, and that when I sailed away I left you to a safe and happy life.  It seems that I was mistaken.  But now that I am at home again, child, I wish you to look upon me, who am so much your elder, as your guardian and protector still.  If there is anything which you lack, if you are misused, are in need of help, why, think that your troubles are the Indians again, little maid, and turn to me once more for help!”