“He won’t,” said Darden roughly. “He’s no hare-brained one-and-twenty! And Audrey’s a good girl. Go send her here, Deborah. Bid her fetch me Stagg’s inkhorn and a pen and a sheet of paper. If he does anything for me, it will have to be done quickly. They’re in haste to pull me out of saddle, the damned canting pack! But I’ll try conclusions with them!” His wife departed, muttering to herself, and the reverend Gideon pulled out of his capacious pocket a flask of usquebaugh. In five minutes from the time of his setting it to his lips the light in which he viewed the situation turned from gray to rose color. By the time he espied Audrey coming toward him through the garden he felt a moral certainty that when he came to die (if ever he died) it would be in his bed in the Fair View glebe house. CHAPTER XVII WITHIN THE PLAYHOUSE Haward, sitting at the table in Marot’s best room, wrote an answer to Audrey’s letter, and tore it up; wrote another, and gave it to Juba, to be given to the messenger waiting below; recalled the negro before he could reach the door, destroyed the second note, and wrote a third. The first had been wise and kind, telling her that he was much engaged, lightly and skillfully waving aside her request--the only one she made--that she might see him that day. The second had been less wise. The last told her that he would come at five o’clock to the summer-house in Mistress Stagg’s garden. When he was alone in the room, he sat for some time very still, with his eyes closed and his head thrown back against the tall woodwork of his chair. His face was stern in repose: a handsome, even a fine face, with a look of power and reflection, but to-day somewhat worn and haggard of aspect. When presently he roused himself and took up the letter that lay before him, the paper shook in his hand. “Wine, Juba,” he said to the slave, who now reëntered the room. “And close the window; it is growing cold.” There were but three lines between the “Mr. Haward” and “Audrey;” the writing was stiff and clerkly, the words very simple,--a child’s asking of a favor. He guessed rightly that it was the first letter of her own that she had ever written. Suddenly a wave of passionate tenderness took him; he bowed his head and kissed the paper; for the moment many-threaded life and his own complex nature alike straightened to a beautiful simplicity. He was the lover, merely; life was but the light and shadow through which moved the woman whom he loved. He came back to himself, and tried to think it out, but could not. Finally, with a weary impatience, he declined to think at all. He was to dine at the Governor’s. Evelyn would be there.