A rotted log, streaked with velvet moss and blotched with fan-shaped, orange-colored fungi, lay by the wayside, and the two sat down upon it to wait for the coming horseman. Overhead the thunder was rolling, but there was as yet no breath of wind, no splash of raindrops. Opposite them rose a gigantic pine, towering above the forest, red-brown trunk and ultimate cone of deep green foliage alike outlined against the dead gloom of the sky. Audrey shook back her heavy hair and raised her face to the roof of the world; her hands were clasped upon her knee; her bare feet, slim and brown, rested on a carpet of moss; she was as still as the forest, of which, to the Highlander, she suddenly seemed a part. When they had kept silence for what seemed a long time, he spoke to her with some hesitation: “You have known Mr. Haward but a short while; the months are very few since he came from England.” The name brought Audrey down to earth again. “Did you not know?” she asked wonderingly. “You also are his friend,--you see him often. I thought that at times he would have spoken of me.” For a moment her face was troubled, though only for a moment. “But I know why he did not so,” she said softly to herself. “He is not one to speak of his good deeds.” She turned toward MacLean, who was attentively watching her, “But I may speak of them,” she said, with pride. “I have known Mr. Haward for years and years. He saved my life; he brought me here from the Indian country; he was, he is, so kind to me!”