for to-day. Be happy as
you can. Let's live in the present, as we were, at least for
to-day. But to-night--"

He turned swiftly, and left her, so that she found left unsaid
certain questions as well as certain accusations she had stored for
this first meeting.

CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT

That night, Josephine St. Auban did not sleep. For hours she
tossed about, listening. Infrequently, sounds came to her ears.
Through the window came now and again faint notes of night-faring
birds, south bound on their autumnal migration. Once in a while a
distant step resounded in the great building, or again there came
the distant voices of the negroes singing in their quarters beyond.
The house had ceased its daily activities. The servants had left
it. Who occupied it now? Was she alone? Was there one other?

In apprehension which comes to the senses in the dark watches of
the night--impressions, conclusions, based upon no actual or
recognized action of the physical senses--Josephine rose, passed to
the window and looked out. The moonlight lay upon the lawn like a
broad silver blanket. Faint stars were twinkling in the clear sky
overhead. The night brooded her planets, hovering the world, so
that life might be.

The dark outlines of the shrubbery below showed black and strong.
Upon the side of a near-by clump of leafless lilacs shone a faint
light, as though from one of the barred windows below. The house
was not quite asleep. She stilled her breath as she might, stilled
her heart as she might, lest its beating should be heard. What was
about to happen? Where could she fly, and how?

Escape by the central stairway would be out of the question,
because by that way only could danger approach. She leaned out of
the window. Catching at the coarse ivy vine which climbed up the
old wall of the house, she saw that it ascended past her window to
the very cornice where the white pillars joined the roof. The
pillars themselves, vast and smooth, would have been useless even
could she have reached them. Below, a slender lattice or ladder
had been erected to the height of one story, to give the ivy its
support. A strong and active person might by mere possibility
reach this frail support if the ivy itself proved strong enough to
hold under the strain. She clutched at it desperately. It seemed
to her that although the smaller tendrils loosened, the greater
arms held firm.

She stepped back into the room, lis