Audrey sat very still for fear that she might disturb him, who was so kind to her.

A passionate gratitude filled her young heart; she would have traveled round the world upon her knees to serve him.

As for him, he was not thinking of the mountain girl, the oread who, in the days when he was younger and his heart beat high, had caught his light fancy, tempting him from his comrades back to the cabin in the valley, to look again into her eyes and touch the brown waves of her hair.

She was ashes, and the memory of her stirred him not.
At last he looked up.

"I myself will take you home, child.