sidesmen, asked a question, and when it was answered, looked fixedly at a
dark girl sitting far away in a pew beneath the gallery.

It was a fine, sunny morning, with a tang of autumn in the air, and the
concourse within the church was very great. The clergy showed like a wedge
of black driven into the bright colors with which nave and transept
overflowed. His Excellency the Governor sat in state, with the Council on
either hand. One member of that body was not present. Well-nigh all
Williamsburgh knew by now that Mr. Marmaduke Haward lay at Marot's
ordinary, ill of a raging fever. Hooped petticoat and fragrant bodice
found reason for whispering to laced coat and periwig; significant glances
traveled from every quarter of the building toward the tall pew where,
collected but somewhat palely smiling, sat Mistress Evelyn Byrd beside her
father. All this was before the sermon. When the minister of the day
mounted the pulpit, and, gaunt against the great black sounding-board,
gave out his text in a solemn and ringing voice, such was the genuine
power of the man that every face was turned toward him, and throughout the
building there fell a sudden hush.

Audrey looked with the rest, but she could not have said that she
listened,--not at first. She was there because she always went to church
on Sunday. It had not occurred to her to ask that she might stay at home.
She had come from her room that morning with the same still face, the same
strained and startled look about the eyes, that she had carried to it the
night before. Black Peggy, who found her bed unslept in, thought that she
must have sat the night through beside the window. Mistress Stagg, meeting
her at the stairfoot with the tidings (just gathered from the lips of a
passer-by) of Mr. Haward's illness, thought that the girl took the news
very quietly. She made no exclamation, said nothing good or bad; only drew
her hand across her brow and eyes, as though she strove to thrust away a