The man at the window shrugged his shoulders, lifted his brows, and spread his hands. So a captain of Mousquetaires might have done; but the face was dark-skinned, the cheek-bones were high, the black eyes large, fierce, and restless. A great bushy peruke, of an ancient fashion, and a coarse, much-laced cravat gave setting and lent a touch of grotesqueness and of terror to a countenance wherein the blood of the red man warred with that of the white. “I will not come in now,” said the voice again. “I am going in my boat to the big creek to take twelve doeskins to an old man named Taberer. I will come back to dinner. May I not, ma’m’selle?” The corners of the lips went up, and the thicket of false hair swept the window sill, so low did the white man bow; but the Indian eyes were watchful. Audrey made no answer; she stood with her face turned away and her eyes upon the door, measuring her chances. If Darden would let her pass, she might reach the stairway and her own room before the trader could enter the house. There were bolts to its heavy door, and Hugon might do as he had done before, and talk his heart out upon the wrong side of the wood. Thanks be! lying upon her bed and pressing the pillow over her ears, she did not have to hear. At the trader’s announcement that his present path led past the house, she ceased her stealthy progress toward her own demesne, and waited, with her back to the window, and her eyes upon one long ray of sunshine that struck high against the wall. “I will come again,” said the voice without, and the apparition was gone from the window. Once more blue sky and rosy bloom spanned the opening, and the sunshine lay in a square upon the floor. The girl drew a long breath, and turning to the table began to arrange the papers upon it with trembling hands. “‘Sixteen thousand pounds of sweet-scented, at ten shillings the hundredweight; for marriage by banns, five shillings; for the preaching of a funeral sermon, forty shillings; for christening’”--began Darden for the Bishop’s information. Audrey took her pen and wrote; but before the list of the minister’s perquisites had come to an end the door flew open, and a woman with the face of a vixen came hurriedly into the room. With her entered the breeze from the river, driving before it the smoke wreaths, and blowing the papers from the table to the floor. Darden stamped his foot. “Woman, I have business, I tell ye,--business with the Bishop of London! I’ve kept his Lordship at the door this se’nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and keep the house! Audrey, where are you, child?” “Audrey, leave the room!” commanded the woman. “I have something to say that’s not for your ears. Let her go, Darden. There’s news, I tell you.”