“Audrey,” he said at last, “you shame me in your thoughts of me. I am not that knight without fear and without reproach for which you take me. Being what I am, you must believe that you have not wearied me; that I think of you and wish to see you. And Hugon, having possibly some care for his own neck, will do me no harm; that is a very foolish notion, which you must put from you. Now listen.” He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. “After a while, perhaps, when the weather is cooler, and I must open my house and entertain after the fashion of the country; when the new Governor comes in, and all this gay little world of Virginia flocks to Williamsburgh; when I am a Councilor, and must go with the rest, and must think of gold and place and people,--why, then, maybe, our paths will again diverge, and only now and then will I catch the gleam of your skirt, mountain maid, brown Audrey! But now in these midsummer days it is a sleepy world, that cares not to go bustling up and down. I am alone in my house; I visit not nor am visited, and the days hang heavy. Let us make believe for a time that the mountains are all around us, that it was but yesterday we traveled together. It is only a little way from Fair View to the glebe house, from the glebe house to Fair View. I will see you often, little maid, and you must dream no more as you dreamed last night.” He paused; his voice changed, and he went on as to himself: “It is a lonely land, with few to see and none to care. I will drift with the summer, making of it an idyl, beautiful,--yes, and innocent! When autumn comes I will go to Westover.” Of this speech Audrey caught only the last word. A wonderful smile, so bright was it, and withal so sad, came into her face. “Westover!” she said to herself. “That is where the princess lives.” “We will let thought alone,” continued Haward. “It suits not with this charmed light, this glamour of the summer.” He made a laughing gesture. “Hey, presto! little maid, there go the years rolling back! I swear I see the mountains through the willow leaves.” “There was one like a wall shutting out the sun when he went down,” answered Audrey. “It was black and grim, and the light flared like a fire behind it. And there was the one above which the moon rose. It was sharp, pointing like a finger to heaven, and I liked it best. Do you remember how large was the moon pushing up behind the pine-trees? We sat on the dark hillside watching it, and you told me beautiful stories, while the moon rose higher and higher and the mockingbirds began to sing.”