As he spoke, he handed into the coach the lady in flowered damask, who had held up her head, but said no word, and the lady in rose-colored brocade, who, through the length of the ballroom and the hall and the broad walk where people passed and repassed, had kept her hand in Audrey’s, and had talked, easily and with smiles, to the two attending gentlemen. He shut to the coach door, and drew back, with a low bow, when Haward’s deeply flushed, handsome face appeared for a moment at the lowered glass. “Art away to Westover, Evelyn?” he asked. “Then ’t is ‘Good-by, sweetheart!’ for I shall not go to Westover again. But you have a fair road to travel,--there are violets by the wayside; for it is May Day, you know, and the woods are white with dogwood and purple with the Judas-tree. The violets are for you; but the great white blossoms, and the boughs of rosy mist, and all the trees that wave in the wind are for Audrey.” His eyes passed the woman whom he would have wed, and rested upon her companion in the coach. “Thou fair dryad!” he said. “Two days hence we will keep tryst beneath the beech-tree in the woods beyond the glebe house.” The man beside him put a hand upon his shoulder and plucked him back, nor would look at Evelyn’s drawn and whitened face, but called to the coachman to go on. The black horses put themselves into motion, the equipage made a wide turn, and the lights of the Palace were left behind. Evelyn lodged in a house upon the outskirts of the town, but from the Palace to Mistress Stagg’s was hardly more than a stone’s throw. Not until the coach was drawing near the small white house did either of the women speak. Then Audrey broke into an inarticulate murmur, and stooping would have pressed her cheek against the hand that had clasped hers only a little while before. But Evelyn snatched her hand away, and with a gesture of passionate repulsion shrank into her corner of the coach. “Oh, how dare you touch me!” she cried. “How dare you look at me, you serpent that have stung me so!” Able to endure no longer, she suddenly gave way to angry laughter. “Do you think I did it for you,--put such humiliation upon myself for you? Why, you wanton, I care not if you stand in white at every church door in Virginia! It was for him, for Mr. Marmaduke Haward of Fair View, for whose name and fame, if he cares not for them himself, his friends have yet some care!” The coach stopped, and the footman opened the door. “Descend, if you please,” went on Evelyn clearly and coldly. “You have had your triumph. I say not there is no excuse for him,--you are very beautiful. Good-night.”