, and found, as she expected, the outer door
unfastened; she opened it, closed it softly after her, and stood alone
in the night. She had to make a choice, and she had only the faintest
indication to guide her--a possible clew in a remembered conversation;
she followed this clew and turned towards the live-oak avenue. Her step
was hurried, she almost ran; as she drew the floating lace-trimmed robe
more closely about her, the moonlight shone, beneath its upheld folds,
on her little white feet. She had never before been out alone under the
open sky at that hour, she glanced over her shoulder, and shivered
slightly, though the night was as warm as July. Her own shadow, keeping
up with her, was like a living thing. The moonlight on the ground was so
white that by contrast all the trees looked black.

The live-oak avenue, when she entered it, seemed a shelter; at least it
was a roof over her head, shutting out the sky. The moonlight only came
at intervals through the thick foliage, making silver checker-work on
the path.

There were two or three bends, then a long straight stretch. As she came
into this straight stretch she saw at the far end, going towards the
lagoon, a figure--Garda; behind Garda, doubly grotesque in the changing
shade and light, stepped the crane.

Margaret's foot-falls made no sound on the soft sand of the path; she
hurried onward, and passing the crane, laid her hand on the girl's
shoulder. "Garda," she said.

Garda stopped, surprised. But though surprised, she was not startled,
she was as calm as though she had been found walking there at noonday.
She was fully dressed, and carried a light shawl.

"Margaret, is it you? How in the world did you know I was here?"

Margaret let her head rest for a moment on Garda's shoulder; her heart
was beating with suffocating rapidity. She recovered herself, stood
erect, and looked at her companion. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"I am going to try and find Lucian; but it may be only trying. He was to
start from the Giron landing at one, when the tide would serve, he said;
but you heard him, so you know as much as I do."

"No. For I don't know what _you're_ going to do."

"Why, I've told you; I'm going to try to go with him, if I can. I'm
going to stand out at the edge of the platform, and then, when he comes
by, perhaps he will see me--it's so light--and take me in. I want to
sail through that thick soft fog he told us about (when it comes up
later), wi