I have never passed through a longer or more trying hour than the next one was, and I could tell by the way Swain twitched about in his chair that he felt the tedium as much as I. Once or twice I tried to start a conversation, but it soon trickled dry; and we ended by smoking away moodily and staring out into the darkness.

At last Swain sprang to his feet.

“I can’t stand this any longer,” he said.  “I’m going over the wall.”

I struck a match and looked at my watch.

“It isn’t eleven o’clock yet,” I warned him.

“I don’t care.  Perhaps she’ll be ahead of time.  Anyway, I might as well wait there as here.”

“Come on, then,” I agreed, for I felt myself that another such hour would be unendurable.

Together we made our way back to the shed and took down the ladders.  A moment later, we were at the wall.  Swain placed his ladder against it, and mounted quickly to the top.  As he paused there, I handed him up the other one.  He caught it from my hands, lifted it over the wall, and lowered it carefully on the other side.  As he did so, I heard him give a muffled exclamation of mingled pain and annoyance, and knew that he had cut himself.

“Not bad, is it?” I asked.

“No; only a scratch on the wrist,” he answered shortly, and the next instant he had swung himself over the wall and disappeared.

CHAPTER VI

THE SCREAM IN THE NIGHT

For some moments, I stood staring up into the darkness, half-expecting that shadowy figure to reappear, descend the ladder, and rejoin me.  Then I shook myself together.  The fact that our plot was really moving, that Swain was in the enemy’s country, so to speak, gave the affair a finality which it had lacked before.  It was too late now to hesitate or turn back; we must press forward.  I felt as though, after a long period of uncertainty, war had been declared and the advance definitely begun.  So it was with a certain sense of relief that I turned away, walked slowly back to the house, and sat down again upon the porch to wait.

Now waiting is seldom a pleasant or an easy thing, and I found it that night most unpleasant and uneasy.  For, before long, doubts began to crowd upon me—­doubts of the wisdom of the course I had subscribed to.  It would have been wiser, I told myself, if it had been I, and not Swain, who had gone to the rendezvous; wiser still, perhaps, to have sought an interview openly, and to have made sure of the facts before seeming to encourage what might easily prove to be a girl’s more or less romantic illusions.  A midnight interview savoured too much of melodrama to appeal to a middle-aged lawyer like myself, however great its appeal might be to youthful lovers.  At any rate, I would be certain that the need was very great before I consented to meddle further!

Somewhat comforted by this resolution and by the thought that no real harm had as yet been done, I struck a match and looked at my watch.  It was half-past eleven.  Well, whatever the story was, Swain was hearing it now, and I should hear it before long.  And then I caught the hum of an approaching car, and was momentarily blinded by the glare of acetylene lamps.