plan--a line which he never got, for his anxiety when
he found she had gone drove him to immediate pursuit.

At about two in the morning of the 19th after a slow and icy journey
she arrived at the inn, knocked up the aged servants, made herself a
cup of chocolate out of her tea-basket and sat down to wait on my
coming.

She has described to me that time of waiting. A home-made candle in a
tall earthenware candlestick lit up the little _salle-a-manger_, which
was the one room in use. The world was very quiet, the snow muffled the
roads, and it was cold with the penetrating chill of the small hours of
a March night. Always, she has told me, will the taste of chocolate and
the smell of burning tallow bring back to her that strange place and
the flutter of the heart with which she waited. For she was on the eve
of the crisis of all our labours, she was very young, and youth has a
quick fancy which will not be checked. Moreover, it was I who was
coming, and save for the scrawl of the night before, we had had no
communication for many weeks ... She tried to distract her mind by
repeating poetry, and the thing that came into her head was Keats's
'Nightingale', an odd poem for the time and place.

There was a long wicker chair among the furnishings of the room, and
she lay down on it with her fur cloak muffled around her. There were
sounds of movement in the inn. The old woman who had let her in, with
the scent of intrigue of her kind, had brightened when she heard that
another guest was coming. Beautiful women do not travel at midnight for
nothing. She also was awake and expectant.

Then quite suddenly came the sound of a car slowing down outside. She
sprang to her feet in a tremor of excitement. It was like the Picardy
chateau again--the dim room and a friend coming out of the night. She
heard the front door open and a step in the little hall ...

She was looking at Ivery.... He slipped his driving-coat off as he
entered, and bowed gravely. He was wearing a green hunting suit which
in the dusk seemed like khaki, and, as he was about my own height, for
a second she was misled. Then she saw his face and her heart stopped.

'You!' she cried. She had sunk back again on the wicker chair.

'I have come as I promised,' he said, 'but a little earlier. You will
forgive me my eagerness to be with you.'

She did not heed his words, for her mind was feverishly busy. My letter
had been a fraud and this man had discovered our plan