hand and kissed and caressed it.

"Go to bed, my dear," said I. "You'll be laughing at this in the
morning. And poor Vohrenlorf is waiting all this while for me."

"Go, then. You may kiss me though."

I bent down and kissed her.

"Your lips are very hot," she said. "Yet you look cool enough."

"I am even rather cold. I must walk home briskly. Good-night."

"You'll make it up with poor Wetter?"

"Indeed our difference is over, or all but over."

"Good. I hate my friends to quarrel seriously. As for a little, it's
amusing enough."

With that she let me go. The last I saw of her was as she ran hastily
across the room, slammed down the window, and drew the curtain across
it. She was afraid of hearing more of those voices of the night that
frightened her. I thought with a smile that candles would burn about her
bed till she woke to rejoice in the sun's new birth. Ah, well, I myself
do not love a blank darkness.

Vohrenlorf and I walked home together. We entered by the gardens, the
sentry saluting us and opening the gate. There was the Pavilion rising
behind my apartments, a long, high, glass-roofed building. The sight of
it recalled my thought from Coralie to the work of the morning. I nodded
my head toward the building and said to Vohrenlorf:

"There's our rendezvous."

He did not answer, but turned to me with his lips quivering.

"What's the matter, man?" I asked.

"For God's sake, sire, don't do it. Send him a message. You mustn't do
it."

"My good Vohrenlorf, you are mad," said I.

Yet not Vohrenlorf was mad, but I, mad with the vision of my two
phantoms--freedom and pleasure.

CHAPTER XVII.

DECIDEDLY MEDIAEVAL.

I was in the Garden Pavilion only the other morning with one of my sons,
teaching him how to use his weapons. Suddenly he pointed at a
bullet-mark not in any of the targets, but in the wainscoting above and
a little to the right of them.

"There's a bad shot, father!" he cried.

"But you don't know what he aimed at," I objected.

"At a target, of course!"

"But perhaps his target was differently placed. That shot is many years
old."

"Anyhow he missed what he shot at, or he wouldn't have struck the
wainscoting," the boy persisted.

"Why, yes, he missed, but he may have missed only by a hair's breadth."

"Do you know who fired the shot?"

"Yes. It's a strange story; perhaps you shall hear it some day."

This little scene recalled with vividness my memories of the mor