ters. The night was soft and persuasive.
Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rush of rockets; and from
the east a late moon, pushing up beyond the lofty bend of the coast, sent
across the bay a shaft of brightness which paled to ashes in the red
glitter of the illuminated boats. Down the lantern-hung Promenade,
snatches of band-music floated above the hum of the crowd and the soft
tossing of boughs in dusky gardens; and between these gardens and the
backs of the stands there flowed a stream of people in whom the
vociferous carnival mood seemed tempered by the growing languor of the
season.

Selden and his companion, unable to get seats on one of the stands facing
the bay, had wandered for a while with the throng, and then found a point
of vantage on a high garden-parapet above the Promenade. Thence they
caught but a triangular glimpse of the water, and of the flashing play of
boats across its surface; but the crowd in the street was under their
immediate view, and seemed to Selden, on the whole, of more interest than
the show itself. After a while, however, he wearied of his perch and,
dropping alone to the pavement, pushed his way to the first corner and
turned into the moonlit silence of a side street. Long garden-walls
overhung by trees made a dark boundary to the pavement; an empty cab
trailed along the deserted thoroughfare, and presently Selden saw two
persons emerge from the opposite shadows, signal to the cab, and drive
off in it toward the centre of the town. The moonlight touched them as
they paused to enter the carriage, and he recognized Mrs. Dorset and
young Silverton.

Beneath the nearest lamp-post he glanced at his watch and saw that the
time was close on eleven. He took another cross street, and without
breasting the throng on the Promenade, made his way to the fashionable
club which overlooks that thoroughfare. Here, amid the blaze of crowded
baccarat tables, he caught sight of Lord Hubert Dacey, seated with his
habitual worn smile behind a rapidly dwindling heap of gold. The heap
being in due course wiped out, Lord Hubert rose with a shrug, and joining
Selden, adjourned with him to the deserted terrace of the club. It was
now past midnight, and the throng on the stands was dispersing, while the
long trails of red-lit boats scattered and faded beneath a sky
repossessed by the tranquil splendour of the moon.

Lord Hubert looked at his watch. "By Jove, I promised to join the Duchess
for supp