"The clock on the mantelpiece struck ten at the moment It was the hour I
was to meet her in the shrubbery; and so, pretending to go in search
of my cigar-case, I slipped away and left them. As I was passing behind
Hawke's chair, he made a gesture to me to come near him. I bent down my
head to him, and he said, 'It won't do this time; she 'll not meet you,
Paul.' These were the last words I ever heard him speak."

When Paten had got thus far, he walked away from his friend, and,
leaning his arm on the bulwark, seemed overwhelmed with the dreary
retrospect He remained thus for a considerable time, and only rallied as
Stocmar, drawing his arm within his, said, "Come, come, this is no fresh
sorrow now. Let me hear the remainder."

"He spoke truly," said he, in a broken voice. "She never came! I walked
the grounds for above an hour and a half, and then I came back towards
the cottage. There was a light in her room, and I whistled to attract
her notice, and threw some gravel against the glass, but she only closed
the shutters, and did not mind me. I cannot tell you how my mind was
racked between the actual terror of the situation and the vague dread of
some unknown evil. What had produced this change in _her?_ Why had
_she_ broken with me? Could it be that Towers had seen her in that long
interval he was absent from the table, and, if so, to what intent? She
always hated and dreaded him; but who could tell what influence such a
man might acquire in a moment of terrible interest? A horrible sense of
jealousy--not the less maddening that it was shadowy and uncertain--now
filled my mind; and--would you believe it?--I thought worse of Towers
for his conduct towards me than for the dreadful plot against Hawke.
Chance led me, as I walked, to the bank of the little lake, where I
stood for some time thinking. Suddenly a splash--too heavy for the
spring of a fish--startled me, and immediately after I heard the sound
of some one forcing his way through the close underwood beside me.
Before I had well rallied from my astonishment, a voice I well knew to
be that of Towers, cried out,--

"'Who 's there?--who are you?'

"I called out, 'Hunt,--Paul Hunt!'

"'And what the devil brings you here, may I ask?' said he, insolently,
but in a tone that showed he had been drinking deeply.

"It was no time to provoke discord; it was a moment that demanded all
we could muster of concession and agreement, and so I simply told how
mere accident ha