on him out of darkness.

He stayed away from the hotel for precisely an hour, and then,
returning, asked at the desk of the concierge whether there were a
message for him. Yes, there was a letter. Max took it, thinking that
this was perhaps the last time he should ever see the name of Doran on
an envelope addressed to him. The direction had been scrawled in haste,
evidently, but even so, the handwriting had grace and character. Its
delicacy, combined with a certain firmness and impulsive dash, expressed
to Max the personality of the writer. The letter was of course from Miss
DeLisle; a short note asking if he would look for her on the terrace at
six-thirty. She would be alone then. Max glanced at the hall clock. It
wanted only three minutes of the half hour, and he went out at once.
The scene on the terrace was very different from what it had been an
hour ago. It might have been "set" for another act, was the fancy that
flashed through the young man's mind. The hyacinth-pink of the
sunset-sky was now faintly silvered with moonlight. All the gay groups
of tea-drinking people had disappeared. Many of the crowding chairs had
been taken away from the little tables and pushed back against the
irregular wall of the house. The floor was being slowly inlaid with
strips of shadow-ebony and moon-silver. Even the perfume of the flowers
seemed changed. Those which had some quality of mystery and sensuous
sadness in their scent had prevailed over the others.

At first Max saw no one, and supposed that Miss DeLisle had not yet come
to keep the appointment; but as he slowly paced the length of the
terrace, he discerned, standing on the farther side of the
pillar-gateway, a figure that paused close to the carved balustrade and
looked out over the garden. There was a suggestion of weariness and
discouragement in the pose, and though the form had Sanda's tall
slimness he could hardly believe it to be hers, until passing through
the gateway he had come quite close to her. She turned at the sound of
footsteps; and in the rose-and-silver twilight he could see that her
eyes were full of tears.

Somehow it struck him as characteristic of the girl that she should not
try to pretend she had not been crying. He could scarcely imagine her
being self-conscious enough to pretend anything.

"Is it half-past six already?" she asked, in a very little voice, almost
like that of a child who had been punished. "I'm glad you've come. Will
you forgive