The object of his search was not there, and he was compelled to make a shamefaced, awkward survey of the tables in an inner refreshment saloon to satisfy himself.

Any one of the pretty girls seated there might have been the one who had just entered, but none was the one he sought.

He hurried into the street again,--he had wasted a precious moment,--and resumed his watch.

The sun had sunk, the Angelus had rung out of a chapel belfry, and shadows were darkening the vista of the Alameda.

She had not come.