I think I know how to spoil your game.' I shrugged my shoulders in disdain, and together, the sergeant leading the way with the light, we crossed the dim meadow, and passed through the gate where Mademoiselle had kissed my hand, and up the ghostly walk between the rose bushes.

I wondered uneasily what the Lieutenant would be at, and what he intended; but the lanthorn-light which now fell on the ground at our feet, and now showed one of us to the other, high-lit in a frame of blackness, discovered nothing in his grizzled face but settled hostility.

He wheeled at the end of the walk to go to the main door, but as he did so I saw the flutter of a white skirt by the stone seat against the house, and I stepped that way.
'Mademoiselle ?' I said softly.

'Is it you ?' 'Clon ?' she muttered, her voice quivering.

'What of him ?' 'He is past pain,' I answered gently.