At last the musicians go, and the people follow.  The sands are soon deserted; the great piazzas are emptied of their promenaders; the halls and corridors are still patronized by the few belated chaperons and their giddy charges.  The music-loving girl has gone aloft to her room, and her aunt, the third member of the group that so chained the attention of the young map in gray, lingers for a moment to exchange a few words with their cavalier.  He seems in need of consolation.

“Don’t be, so down-hearted, Mr. Van Antwerp.  It is very early in the summer, and you have the whole season before you.”

“No, Mrs. Rayner:  it is very different from last year.  I cannot explain it, but I know there has been a change.  I feel as—­as I used to in my old, wild days when a change of luck was coming.  It’s like the gambler’s superstition; but I cannot shake it off.  Something told me she was lost to me when, you boarded that Pacific Express last February.  I was a fool ever to have let her go.”

“Is she still so determined?”

“I cannot shake her resolution.  She says that at the end of the year’s time originally agreed upon she will keep her promise; but she will listen to no earlier marriage.  I have about given up all hope.  Something again—­that fearful something I cannot shake off—­tells me that my only chance lay in getting her to go with me this month.  Once abroad with her, I could make her happy; but—­”

He breaks off irresolutely, looking about him in the strange, hunted manner she has noted once or twice already.

“You are all unstrung, Mr. Van Antwerp.  Why not go to bed and try and sleep?  You will be so much brighter to-morrow.”

“I cannot sleep.  But don’t let me keep you.  I’ll go out and smoke a cigar.  Good-night, Mrs. Rayner.  Whatever comes of it all, I shall not forget your kindness.”

So he turns away, and she still stands at the foot of the staircase, watching him uneasily.  He has aged greatly in the past few months.  She is shocked to see how gray, how fitful, nervous, irritable, he has become.  As he moves towards the door-way, she notes how thin his cheek has grown, and wonders at the irresolution in his movements when he reaches the broad piazza.  He stands there an instant, the massive door-way forming a frame for a picture en silhouette, his tall spare figure thrown black upon the silver sea beyond.  He looks up and down the now-deserted galleries, fumbles in his pockets for his cigar-case, bites off with nervous clip the end of a huge “Regalia,” strikes a light, and before the flame is half applied to his weed throws it away, then turns sharply and strides out of sight towards the office.

Another instant, and, as though in pursuit, a second figure, erect, soldierly, with quick and bounding step strides across the glittering moon-streak, and Mrs. Rayner’s heart stands still.