ey?"

The dark eyes that met his were the eyes of the child who, in the
darkness, through the corn, had run from him, her helper. "There was one,"
she whispered, and looked over her shoulder.

Haward drew her to the seat beneath the cherry-tree, and there, while he
sat beside her, elbow on knee and chin on hand, watching her, she told him
of Hugon. It was so natural to tell him. When she had made an end of her
halting, broken sentences, and he spoke to her gravely and kindly, she
hung upon his words, and thought him wise and wonderful as a king. He told
her that he would speak to Darden, and did not despair of persuading that
worthy to forbid the trader his house. Also he told her that in this
settled, pleasant, every-day Virginia, and in the eighteenth century, a
maid, however poor and humble, might not be married against her will. If
this half-breed had threats to utter, there was always the law of the
land. A few hours in the pillory or a taste of the sheriff's whip might
not be amiss. Finally, if the trader made his suit again, Audrey must let
him know, and Monsieur Jean Hugon should be taught that he had another
than a helpless, friendless girl to deal with.

Audrey listened and was comforted, but the shadow did not quite leave her
eyes. "He is waiting for me now," she said fearfully to Haward, who had
not missed the shadow. "He followed me down the creek, and is waiting over
against the gate in the wall. When I go back he will follow me again, and
at last I will have to cross to his side. And then he will go home with
me, and make me listen to him. His eyes burn me, and when his hand touches
me I see--I see"--

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 grou