re justly rebuked out of the mouth of a drunken man! I have done,
Mr. Commissary," addressing himself to that dignitary, who had advanced to
the altar rail with his arm raised in a command for silence. "I've no
child of my own, thank God! but the maid has grown up in my house, and
I'll not sit to hear her belied. I've heard of last night; 'twas the mad
whim of a sick man. The girl's as guiltless of wrong as any lady here. I,
Gideon Darden, vouch for it!"

He sat heavily down beside Audrey, who never stirred from her still regard
of that high window. There was a moment of portentous silence; then, "Let
us pray," said the minister from the pulpit.

Audrey knelt with the rest, but she did not pray. And when it was all
over, and the benediction had been given, and she found herself without
the church, she looked at the green trees against the clear autumnal
skies and at the graves in the churchyard as though it were a new world
into which she had stepped. She could not have said that she found it
fair. Her place had been so near the door that well-nigh all the
congregation was behind her, streaming out of the church, eager to reach
the open air, where it might discuss the sermon, the futile and scandalous
interruption by the notorious Mr. Darden, and what Mr. Marmaduke Haward
might have said or done had he been present.

Only Mistress Stagg kept beside her; for Mistress Deborah hung back,
unwilling to be seen in her company, and Darden, from that momentary
awakening of his better nature, had sunk to himself again, and thought not
how else he might aid this wounded member of his household. But Mary Stagg
was a kindly soul, whose heart had led her comfortably through life with
very little appeal to her head. The two or three young women--Oldfields
and Porters of the Virginian stage--who were under indentures to her
husband and herself found her as much their friend as mistress. Their
triumphs in the petty playhouse of this town of a thousand souls were
hers, and what woes they had came quickly to her ears. Now she would have
slipped her hand into Audrey's and have given garrulous comfort, as the
two passed alone through the churchyard gate and took their way up Palace
Street toward the small white house. But Audrey gave not her hand, did not
answer, made no moan, neither justified herself nor blamed another. She
did not speak at all, but after the first glance about her moved like a
sleepwalker.

When the house was reached