Hand in hand the two walked slowly toward that haunt of peace, Truelove’s quiet home. “And Marmaduke Haward awaits thee at Williamsburgh?” said the Quakeress. “Last third day he met my father and me on the Fair View road, and checked his horse and spoke to us. He is changed.” “Changed indeed!” quoth the Highlander. “A fire burns him, a wind drives him; and yet to the world, last night”--He paused. “Last night?” said Truelove. “He had a large company at Marot’s ordinary,” went on the other. “There were the Governor and his fellow Councilors, with others of condition or fashion. He was the very fine gentleman, the perfect host, free, smiling, full of wit. But I had been with him before they came. I knew the fires beneath.” The two walked in silence for a few moments, when MacLean spoke again: “He drank to her. At the last, when this lady had been toasted, and that, he rose and drank to ‘Audrey,’ and threw his wineglass over his shoulder. He hath done what he could. The world knows that he loves her honorably, seeks her vainly in marriage. Something more I know. He gathered the company together last evening that, as his guests, the highest officers, the finest gentlemen of the colony, should go with him to the theatre to see her for the first time as a player. Being what they were, and his guests, and his passion known, he would insure for her, did she well or did she ill, order, interest, decent applause.” MacLean broke off with a short, excited laugh. “It was not needed,--his mediation. But he could not know that; no, nor none of us. True, Stagg and his wife had bragged of the powers of this strangely found actress of theirs that they were training to do great things, but folk took it for a trick of their trade. Oh, there was curiosity enough, but ’twas on Haward’s account.... Well, he drank to her, standing at the head of the table at Marot’s ordinary, and the glass crashed over his shoulder, and we all went to the play.” “Yes, yes!” cried Truelove, breathing quickly, and quite forgetting how great a vanity was under discussion. “’Twas ‘Tamerlane,’ the play that this traitorous generation calls for every 5th of November. It seems that the Governor--a Whig as rank as Argyle--had ordered it again for this week. ’Tis a cursed piece of slander that pictures the Prince of Orange a virtuous Emperor, his late Majesty of France a hateful tyrant. But for Haward, whose guest I was, I had not sat there with closed lips. I had sprung to my feet and given those flatterers, those traducers, the lie! The thing taunted and angered until she entered. Then I forgot.” “And she--and Audrey?” “Arpasia was her name in the play. She entered late; her death came before the end; there was another woman who had more to do. It all mattered not, I have seen a great actress.” “Darden’s Audrey!” said Truelove, in a whisper.