fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it
was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst
of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his
native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the _daoine shi'_
the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they
dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they
issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race.

A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting
on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of
figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light,
with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the
Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that
it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far
off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when,
after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and
stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her,
standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that
she moved or looked his way.

"How long since you left the glebe house?" he demanded abruptly.

"The sun was high," she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of
surprise at finding herself no longer alone. "I have been sitting here for
a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this afternoon.... There
is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down here he might not find
me very soon."

Her voice died away, and she looked again at the water. The storekeeper
sat down upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine, and his