not silence, of
loneliness that was filled with still, small voices, of heavy darkness
without, of lights burning in an empty house, it was rather of ashes of
roses that one thought.

Haward went to the open window, and with one knee upon the window seat
looked out into the windy, starlit night. This was the eastern face of the
house, and, beyond the waving trees, there were visible both the river and
the second and narrower creek which on this side bounded the plantation.
The voice with which the waters swept to the sea came strongly to him. A
large white moth sailed out of the darkness to the lit window, but his
presence scared it away.

Looking through the walnut branches, he could see a light that burned
steadily, like a candle set in a window. For a moment he wondered whence
it shone; then he remembered that the glebe lands lay in that direction.
The parish was building a house for its new minister, when he left
Virginia, those many years ago. Suddenly he recalled that the
minister--who had seemed to him a bluff, downright, honest fellow--had
told him of a little room looking out upon an orchard, and had said that
it should be the child's.

It was possible that the star which pierced the darkness might mark that
room. He knit his brows in an effort to remember when, before this day, he
had last thought of a child whom he had held in his arms and comforted,
one splendid dawn, upon a hilltop, in a mountainous region. He came to the
conclusion that he must have forgotten her quite six years ago. Well, she
would seem to have thriven under his neglect,--and he saw again the girl
who had run for the golden guinea. It was true that when he had put her
there where that light was shining, it was with some shadowy idea of
giving her gentle breeding, of making a lady of her. But man's purposes
are fleeting, and often gone with the morrow. He had forgotten his
purpose; and perhaps it was best this way,--perhaps it was best this way.

For a little longer he looked at the light and listened to the voice of
the river; then he rose from the window seat, drew the curtains, and began
thoughtfully to prepare for bed.

CHAPTER VII

THE RETURN OF MONSIEUR JEAN HUGON

To the north the glebe was bounded by a thick wood, a rank and dense
"second growth" springing from earth where had once stood, decorously
apart, the monster trees of the primeval forest; a wild maze of young
trees, saplings and underbrush, overrun from th