such an idea as sketching in the middle of the night?
Zenz! don't you hear? Won't you make it up again?"

All in vain. After wasting his entreaties and at last his anger, for
some time longer, on the tightly-closed door, he was finally obliged to
give it up. His blood was in a whirl; he could not conceive now how he
could have repulsed the poor creature in such cold-blooded fashion.
"Perhaps her anger will pass over, if I leave her to herself for a
while," he thought.

"I am going out to take a little walk," he cried through the key-hole.
"I must have a breath of fresh air. When I come back again, perhaps my
headache will be gone and your fit of temper, too. In the mean while,
pass away the time as pleasantly as you can."

And he really did go out into the night; but he returned again before a
quarter of an hour had passed--he was drawn back by some power that he
himself could not understand.

As he entered his sleeping-room, where the lamp was still burning
steadily, it was empty. He passed quickly through the door, which was
now unbolted, into the sitting-room. But here, too, no trace could be
found of his guest, search as he would behind the curtains and in the
dark corners. The light had not been extinguished and a bat had flown
into the room, and the exertion of hunting him out again threw him into
a perspiration. When at last he succeeded, and, exhausted by such a
variety of excitement, had sunk back upon the sofa, he found that all
the little knickknacks, which he had spread before her when they first
arrived, were still lying on the table in the same order in which he
had left them. The little dagger which his Creole friend had given him
was the only thing he missed, and he could not find it though he
searched for it everywhere.

_BOOK III_.

CHAPTER I.

There are summer nights that are not made for sleep. The moon shines
far brighter than at other times, as if a lamp were burning at its full
height in the sleeping-room instead of a mere night-light. People
strolling along, absorbed in thought and feeling the flagstones under
their feet still warm--for they have been drinking in the fierce glow
of the sun the livelong summer day--catch themselves in the act of
crossing over out of the moonlight to the shady side, just as one does
in the hot noontide. On such nights as this, sounds of life and
merriment are heard throughout the c