ly a few steps away, the lights of the Grande Place?
Moreover he knew the man, and was going to put him into his book. He was
the brother of the swan-necked Edith, a spirit of darkness, condemned
to wander at night in the streets of Bruges, as a penance for having
attempted to seduce St. Gunhild, sister of King Harold. Each time that
Carlino had ventured at night into the more lonely parts of Bruges he
had seen this sinister figure, wandering, as it seemed, aimlessly.

"That is a nice way to reassure people," said Noemi.

Carlino shrugged his shoulders, and declared the meeting to have been
most fortunate, since it had suggested the name of Gunhild for his
heroine, Noemi being that of a mother-in-law.

In the black shadow of the enormous Halles, towering on the right of
the street, the sinister-looking man, who had retraced his steps, almost
brushed Jeanne's side in passing, and this time she really shuddered.
At this moment, however, the innumerable bells rang out amid the clouds
above her head.

She pressed Noemi's arm convulsively without speaking. In silence they
crossed the square. Carlino directed them to take a lonely street on the
left, brightly illumined by the moon, which hung just above the dark,
serrated house-tops. Jeanne whispered to her companion:

"Let us make haste and get home quickly."

But Carlino, hearing the sound of dance-music issuing from the Hotel de
Flandre, ordered them to stop and began writing in his note-book. Noemi
was saying something about the Hotel de Flandre, where she had stayed
some years before, when Jeanne suddenly interrupted her:

"Did Maria write you that long story?"

Noemi answered, apprehensive rather than surprised.

"Yes, it was Maria."

"I do not understand," replied Jeanne, "why she should have taken all
that trouble."

Noemi did not answer. Jeanne shook her arm which she still held. "Will
you not speak? What do you think?"

Although both now were silent, they did not hear Carlino call to them to
turn to the left. He came up angrily, and taking them by the shoulders,
turned them, fuming the while, in another direction. They obeyed without
noticing his voice or manner.

"Will you not answer?" Jeanne repeated, half aggrieved and half amazed.

Noemi in her turn pressed her friend's arm.

"Wait until we get home," she said.

Carlino shouted.

"Stop under those trees."

But Jeanne, having reached an open space filled with small trees and
bathed in moonl