hich I was as positive as ever I had seen Karine.
Only a short time ago I had dreamed of doing such a thing as this as a
delicious impossibility, only belonging to a world of romance which I
could never enter. But here I was actually bent on the accomplishment of
the deed.

The falling darkness had protected me, I felt confident, from being seen
by anybody in the house as I crossed the lawn, and I approached with
boldness, which only left me as I reached the window.

The curtain hung apart as before, and I could see the fireplace with the
lights and shadows travelling fantastically along the polished floor and
wall. The white irradiated figure was no longer visible, but
undiscouraged by this fact I gently tapped, trusting that Karine might
be in another part of the room to which my eyes could not reach.

If she were there my knock would startle her perhaps, and she would draw
near in curiosity to see what had made the slight suspicious noise; then
I could make my presence known, leaving apologies till later, and
afterward--well, afterward the rest must depend upon her.

But I knocked once, twice, thrice, each time a little louder, a little
more insistently than before, and there was no response, no sound, no
movement. After all I was thwarted, and had but one comfort in the midst
of gloom--I had not been easily repulsed, I had done what I could, and
need not feel, when I was far away, that I had let myself be outwitted,
outgeneralled, without an effort to resist.

Fate had decided that I must go to America without a word, without a
look into Karine Cunningham's eyes; and drearily returning to my waiting
cab I commenced once more the tedious drive to the station.

Never had I felt more utterly disheartened; for, after all, I could not
be _quite_ sure that Karine had not acquiesced in the order to
exclude me from the house. It seemed that she must have heard my voice
in the hall, that if she had chosen she might easily have contrived some
means of seeing me while I was briskly taxing my ingenuity to reach her.
I guessed at Wildred's powerful influence in the affair, and was ready
to fancy others; but, as I was to learn long afterward, I brought
forward every reason for Karine's mysterious inertness save the right
one.

CHAPTER XX

The Quest

It was a piercingly cold day when I landed in New York--such cold as I
had not felt since I had finished my last American visit, four years
ago.

Everyone else am