had come. It seemed to
her unlikely. She could not imagine that anyone in all the world was up
and purposeful but herself. This hour seemed created as a curtain for
unconsciousness. Very softly she stepped out upon the verandah and
looked over the parapet. She could see the white road, mysteriously
white, below. It was deserted. She leaned down.

"Batouch!" she called softly. "Batouch!"

He might be hidden under the arcade, sleeping in his burnous.

"Batouch! Batouch!"

No answer came. She stood by the parapet, waiting and looking down the
road.

All the stars had faded, yet there was no suggestion of the sun.
She faced an unrelenting austerity. For a moment she thought of this
atmosphere, this dense stillness, this gravity of vague and shadowy
trees, as the environment of those who had erred, of the lost spirits of
men who had died in mortal sin.

Almost she expected to see the desperate shade of her dead father pass
between the black stems of the palm trees, vanish into the grey mantle
that wrapped the hidden world.

"Batouch! Batouch!"

He was not there. That was certain. She resolved to set out alone and
went back into her bedroom to get her revolver. When she came out again
with it in her hand Androvsky was standing on the verandah just
outside her window. He took off his hat and looked from her face to the
revolver. She was startled by his appearance, for she had not heard his
step, and had been companioned by a sense of irreparable solitude. This
was the first time she had seen him since he vanished from the garden on
the previous day.

"You are going out, Madame?" he said.

"Yes."

"Not alone?"

"I believe so. Unless I find Batouch below."

She slipped the revolver into the pocket of the loose coat she wore.

"But it is dark."

"It will be day very soon. Look!"

She pointed towards the east, where a light, delicate and mysterious as
the distant lights in the opal, was gently pushing in the sky.

"You ought not to go alone."

"Unless Batouch is there I must. I have given a promise and I must keep
it. There is no danger."

He hesitated, looking at her with an anxious, almost a suspicious,
expression.

"Good-bye, Monsieur Androvsky."

She went towards the staircase. He followed her quickly to the head of
it.

"Don't trouble to come down with me."

"If--if Batouch is not there--might not I guard you, Madame?" She
remembered the Count's words and answered:

"Let me tell you where I