Oh, he could reach to the quick! She was sure that he had not meant to
accuse her of ingratitude, and pitifully sure that she must have seemed
guilty of it. "No, no!" she cried. "I have had a friend"--Her voice broke,
and she started to her feet, her face to the door, all her being
quiveringly eager to be gone. She had asked that which she was bidden to
ask, had gained that which she was bidden to gain; for the rest, it was
far better that she should go. Better far for him to think her dull and
thankless as a stone than see--than see--

When Haward caught her by the hand, she trembled and drew a sobbing
breath. "'I have had a friend,' Audrey?" he asked. "Why not 'I have a
friend'?"

"Why not?" thought Audrey. "Of course he would think, why not? Well,
then"--

"I have a friend," she said aloud. "Have you not been to me the kindest
friend, the most generous"--She faltered, but presently went on, a strange
courage coming to her. She had turned slightly toward him, though she
looked not at him, but upward to where the light streamed through the high
window. It fell now upon her face. "It is a great thing to save life," she
said. "To save a soul alive, how much greater! To have kept one soul in
the knowledge that there is goodness, mercy, tenderness, God; to have
given it bread to eat where it sat among the stones, water to drink where
all the streams were dry,--oh, a king might be proud of that! And that is
what you have done for me.... When you sailed away, so many years ago, and
left me with the minister and his wife, they were not always kind. But I
knew that you thought them so, and I always said to myself, 'If he knew,
he would be sorry for me.' At last I said, 'He is sorry for me; there is