He turned his great shambling body and heavy face toward the preacher, stemmed in the full tide of his eloquence by this unseemly interruption, “Ye beggarly Scot!” he exclaimed thickly. “Ye evil-thinking saint from Salem way, that know the very lining of the Lord’s mind, and yet, walking through his earth, see but a poisonous weed in his every harmless flower! Shame on you to beat down the flower that never did you harm! The girl’s as innocent a thing as lives! Ay, I’ve had my dram,--the more shame to you that are 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.