nd slightly acrid scent
came to me, sweet and spicy, faintly reminiscent of the odor of the
aromatic herbs one smells about a mummy's wrappings.

"Thanks, I've had enough to drink already," Ned said shortly.

"You are informing me, _mon vieux_?" the little Frenchman answered
with a smile. "It is for that I brought this draft along. It will help
you draw yourself together. You have need of all your faculties this
time, believe me."

Ned put the bottle to his lips, drained its contents, hiccuped
lightly, then braced his shoulders. "That _is_ a pick-up," he
complimented. "Too bad you didn't let me have it sooner, sir. I think
I can go through the ordeal now."

"One is sure you can," the Frenchman answered confidently. "Walk
slowly toward the spot where you last saw Julie, if you please. We
shall await you here, in easy call if we are needed."

The aisle of tombs was empty as Ned left us. The turf had been
fresh-mown for the day of visitation and was as smooth and short as a
lawn tennis court. A field-mouse could not have run across the pathway
without our seeing it. This much I noticed idly as Ned trudged away
from us, walking more like a man on his way to the gallows than one
who went to keep a lovers' rendezvous ... and suddenly he was not
alone. There was another with him, a girl dressed in a clinging robe
of sheer white muslin cut in the charming fashion of the First Empire,
girdled high beneath the bosom with a sash of light-blue ribbon. A
wreath of pale gardenias lay upon her bright, fair hair; her slender
arms were pearl-white in the moonlight. As she stepped toward Ned I
thought involuntarily of a line from Sir John Suckling:

"Her feet ... like little mice stole in and out."

"_Edouard, cheri! O, coeur de mon coeur, c'est veritablement toi?_
Thou hast come willingly, unasked, _petit amant_?"

"I'm here," Ned answered steadily, "but only----" He paused and drew a
sudden gasping breath, as though a hand had been laid on his throat.

"_Cheri_," the girl asked in a trembling voice, "you are cold to me;
do not you love me, then--you are not here because your heart heard my
heart calling? O heart of my heart's heart, if you but knew how I have
longed and waited! It has been _triste, mon Edouard_, lying in my
narrow bed alone while winter rains and summer suns beat down,
listening for your footfall. I could have gone out at my pleasure
whenever moonlight made the nights all bright with silver; I could
hav