T 273

XXI. AUDREY AWAKES 287

XXII. BY THE RIVERSIDE 300

XXIII. A DUEL 312

XXIV. AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER 322

XXV. TWO WOMEN 337

XXVI. SANCTUARY 349

XXVII. THE MISSION OF TRUELOVE 363

XXVIII. THE PLAYER 375

XXIX. AMOR VINCIT 391

XXX. THE LAST ACT 402

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

GAZED WITH WIDE-OPEN EYES AT THE INTRUDER (page 106) _Frontispiece_

"HAD YOU LOVED ME--I HAD BEEN HAPPY" 58

AUDREY LEFT HER WARNING TO BE SPOKEN BY MACLEAN 206

"I DO NOT THINK I HAVE THE HONOR OF KNOWING"-- 270

HER DARK EYES MADE APPEAL 342

"JEAN! JEAN HUGON!" 414

AUDREY

CHAPTER I

THE CABIN IN THE VALLEY

The valley lay like a ribbon thrown into the midst of the encompassing
hills. The grass which grew there was soft and fine and abundant; the
trees which sprang from its dark, rich mould were tall and great of girth.
A bright stream flashed through it, and the sunshine fell warm upon the
grass and changed the tassels of the maize into golden plumes. Above the
valley, east and north and south, rose the hills, clad in living green,
mantled with the purpling grape, wreathed morn and eve with trailing mist.
To the westward were the mountains, and they dwelt apart in a blue haze.
Only in the morning, if the mist were not there, the sunrise struck upon
their long summits, and in the evening they stood out, high and black and
fearful, against the splendid sky. The child who played beside the cabin
door often watched them as the valley filled with shadows, and thought of
them as a great wall between her and some land of the fairies which must
needs lie beyond that barrier, beneath the splendor and the evening star.
The Indians called them the Endless Mountains, and the child never doubted
that they ran across the world and touched the floor of heaven.

In the hands of the woman who was spinning the thread broke and the song
died in the white throat of the girl who stood in the doorway. For a
moment the two gazed with widening eyes into the green September world
without the cabin; then the woman sprang to her feet, tore from the wall a
horn, and, running to the door, wound it lustily. The echoes from the
hills had not died when a man and a boy, the one bearing a musket,