Her frame shook, and she raised to his gaze a countenance suddenly changed into Tragedy’s own.  “I don’t know why,” she said, in a stricken voice, “but of them all that I kissed good-by that night I now see only Molly.  I suppose she was about as old as I am when they killed her.  We were always together.  I can’t remember her face very clearly; only her eyes, and how red her lips were.  And her hair:  it came to her knees, and mine is just as long.  For a long, long time after you went away, when I could not sleep because it was dark, or when I was frightened or Mistress Deborah beat me, I saw them all; but now I see only Molly,—­Molly lying there dead.”

There was a silence in the garden, broken presently by Haward.  “Ay, Molly,” he said absently.

With his hand covering his lips and his eyes upon the ground, he fell into a brown study.  Audrey sat very still for fear that she might disturb him, who was so kind to her.  A passionate gratitude filled her young heart; she would have traveled round the world upon her knees to serve him.  As for him, he was not thinking of the mountain girl, the oread who, in the days when he was younger and his heart beat high, had caught his light fancy, tempting him from his comrades back to the cabin in the valley, to look again into her eyes and touch the brown waves of her hair.  She was ashes, and the memory of her stirred him not.

At last he looked up.  “I myself will take you home, child.  This fellow shall not come near you.  And cease to think of these gruesome things that happened long ago.  You are young and fair; you should be happy.  I will see to it that”—­

He broke off, and again looked thoughtfully at the ground.  The book which he had tossed aside was lying upon the grass, open at the poem which he had been reading.  He stooped and raised the volume, and, closing it, laid it upon the bench beside her.  Presently he laughed.  “Come, child!” he said.  “You have youth.  I begin to think my own not past recall.  Come and let me show you my dial that I have just had put up.”

There was no load at Audrey’s heart:  the vision of Molly had passed; the fear of Hugon was a dwindling cloud.  She was safe in this old sunny garden, with harm shut without.  And as a flower opens to the sunshine, so because she was happy she grew more fair.  Audrey every day, Audrey of the infrequent speech and the wide dark eyes, the startled air, the shy, fugitive smiles,—­that was not Audrey of the garden.  Audrey of the garden had shining eyes, a wild elusive grace, laughter as silvery as that which had rung from her sister’s lips, years agone, beneath the sugar-tree in the far-off blue mountains, quick gestures, quaint fancies which she feared not to speak out, the charm of mingled humility and spirit; enough, in short, to make Audrey of the garden a name to conjure with.

They came to the sun-dial, and leaned thereon.  Around its rim were graved two lines from Herrick, and Audrey traced the letters with her finger.  “The philosophy is sound,” remarked Haward, “and the advice worth the taking.  Let us go see if there are any rosebuds to gather from the bushes yonder.  Damask buds should look well against your hair, child.”