Quite suddenly he remembered that he had told that girl, whose name he did not know, that he would come.  It was a definite promise.  It was an obligation.

He could do nothing less.  It might be unwelcome, absurd, a nuisance, but really it was an obligation.

He sauntered down the lane, keeping carefully in the shadow.  He loitered within that deep-set door—­and felt a queer throb of emotion at the sight of it—­and so, sauntering and loitering, he waited in the darkening night, promising himself disgustedly through the dragging moments to clear out and be done with this, but still interminably lingering, his pulses throbbing with that disowned expectancy.

Very cautiously, the gate began to open.

CHAPTER V

AT THE GARDEN GATE

Inch by inch the gate edged open.  Warily he presented himself.  The furtive crack gave him an instant’s glimpse of a dark form within the shadows, then, in his face, it closed.

Ryder waited.  In a moment it was opened wider, and he saw the dark-shrouded head and the veiled face of the Turkish girl, and out from the blackness the sparkle of young eyes.

“Is it—­but who is it?” whispered a doubtful voice, and at his, “Why it is I—­the American,” quickly drawing off his cap, a little hand darted out of the darkness to pluck him swiftly within and the door was closed to within an inch of its opening.

Then the black phantom, drawing him back among the shrubbery, against the wall, turned with a muffled note of laughter.

“But the costume!  Imagine that I—­I was looking again for a Scottish chieftain with red kilts and a feather in his cap!”

“And instead—­” Ryder glanced down at his tweeds with humorous recognition of his change of figure.  Then his eyes returned to her.

“But you are the same,” he murmured.

She was indeed the same.  The same black street mantle, down to her very brows.  The same black veil, up to her very eyes.  And the eyes—!  Their soft mysterious loveliness—­the little winged tilt of the brows!

Apparently their effect was disconcertingly the same.  He was conscious of a feeling that was far from a normal calm.

“So you were all right?” he half whispered.  “Those steps, last night, you know, made me horribly afraid for you—­”

“But, yes, I am all right.”

As excitement gained upon him, a constraint was falling upon her.  They were both remembering that moment, overlooked in the rush of recognition, when they had parted in this place, when he had had the temerity to clasp and kiss her.

Aimee was standing rigid and wary, ready for flight at the first fear.  She told herself that she had only come through pride, the pride that insisted upon humbling his presumption.  She would let him see how bitterly he had offended....  She had only come for this, she told herself—­and to see if he had come.