As he spoke, and without waiting for the permission which he asked, he crossed the rustling leaves, and threw himself down upon the earth between two branching roots.  Her skirt brushed his knee; with a movement quick and shy she put more distance between them, then stood and looked at him with wide, grave eyes.  “Why do you say that you came here to find me?” she asked.  “I do not know you.”

Haward laughed, nursing his knee and looking about him.  “Let that pass for a moment.  You have the prettiest woodland parlor, child!  Tell me, do they treat you well over there?” with a jerk of his thumb toward the glebe house.  “Madam the shrew and his reverence the bully, are they kind to you?  Though they let you go like a beggar maid,”—­he glanced kindly enough at her bare feet and torn gown,—­“yet they starve you not, nor beat you, nor deny you aught in reason?”

Audrey drew herself up.  She had a proper pride, and she chose to forget for this occasion a bruise upon her arm and the thrusting upon her of Hugon’s company.  “I do not know who you are, sir, that ask me such questions,” she said sedately.  “I have food and shelter and—­and—­kindness.  And I go barefoot only of week days”—­

It was a brave beginning, but of a sudden she found it hard to go on.  She felt his eyes upon her and knew that he was unconvinced, and into her own eyes came the large tears.  They did not fall, but through them she saw the forest swim in green and gold.  “I have no father or mother,” she said, “and no brother or sister.  In all the world there is no one that is kin to me.”

Her voice, that was low and full and apt to fall into minor cadences, died away, and she stood with her face raised and slightly turned from the gentleman who lay at her feet, stretched out upon the sere beech leaves.  He did not seem inclined to speech, and for a time the little brook and the birds and the wind in the trees sang undisturbed.

“These woods are very beautiful,” said Haward at last, with his gaze upon her, “but if the land were less level it were more to my taste.  Now, if this plain were a little valley couched among the hills, if to the westward rose dark blue mountains like a rampart, if the runlet yonder were broad and clear, if this beech were a sugar-tree”—­

He broke off, content to see her eyes dilate, her bosom rise and fall, her hand go trembling for support to the column of the beech.

“Oh, the mountains!” she cried.  “When the mist lifted, when the cloud rested, when the sky was red behind them!  Oh, the clear stream, and the sugar-tree, and the cabin!  Who are you?  How did you know about these things?  Were you—­were you there?”

She turned upon him, with her soul in her eyes.  As for him, lying at length upon the ground, he locked his hands beneath his head and began to sing, though scarce above his breath.  He sang the song of Amiens:—­

    “Under the greenwood tree,
     Who loves to lie with me.”