war. Granet
listened for a few minutes and then said good-night a little abruptly.
He lit his candle outside and went slowly to his room. Arrived there,
he glanced at his watch and locked the door. It was half-past eleven. He
changed his clothes quickly, put on some rubber-soled shoes and slipped
a brandy flask and a revolver into his pocket. Then he sat down before
his window with his watch in his hand. He was conscious of a certain
foreboding from which he had never been able to escape since his
arrival. In France and Belgium he had lived through fateful hours,
carrying more than once his life in his hands. His risk to-night was an
equal one but the exhilaration seemed lacking. This work in a country
apparently at peace seemed somehow on a different level. If it were
less dangerous, it was also less stimulating. In those few moments the
soldier blood in him called for the turmoil of war, the panorama of life
and death, the fierce, hot excitement of juggling with fate while the
heavens themselves seemed raining death on every side. Here there was
nothing but silence, the soft splash of the distant sea, the barking of
a distant dog. The danger was vivid and actual but without the stimulus
of that blood-red background. He glanced at his watch. It wanted still
ten minutes to twelve. For a moment then he suffered his thoughts to
go back to the new thing which had crept into his life. He was suddenly
back in the Milan, he saw the backward turn of her head, the almost
wistful look in her eyes as she made her little pronouncement. She had
broken her engagement. Why? It was a battle, indeed, he was fighting
with that still, cold antagonist, whom he half despised and half feared,
the man concerning whose actual personality he had felt so many doubts.
What if things should go wrong to-night, if the whole dramatic story
should be handed over for the glory and wonder of the halfpenny press!
He could fancy their headlines, imagine even their trenchant paragraphs.
It was skating on the thinnest of ice--and for what? His fingers gripped
the damp window-sill. He raised himself a little higher. His eyes fell
upon his watch--still a minute or two to twelve. Slowly he stole to
his door and listened. The place was silent. He made his way on tiptoe
across the landing and entered Collins' room. The latter was seated
before the wide-open window. He had blown out his candle and the room
was in darkness. He half turned his head at Granet's entr