How long he thus lay, brooding and miserable, he did not even care to know.  A step aroused him from his stupor.

He looked up.  A man was coming from the road toward the tree.  He was tall, handsome and dark of face, Mark thought, for the moon had risen a little and the man was in the light.  His stride was that of a soldier, with a step both firm and sure.  He looked straight ahead, with his eyes fixed on the tree as though that were his goal.  He passed Mark’s resting-place quickly and struck three times on the tree, which gave back a hollow sound.  Then he waited, while Mark watched.  In a minute the signal was repeated, and only a few more instants passed before the doorway in the tree was flung open.

Mark saw the white-gowned figure of the lady of the tree step out.  He heard her cry “Luigi!” with a voice full of joy and gladness.  The two met in quick embrace, and the desolation of the watcher was complete as he heard her speak lovingly to the officer who had at last come back into her life.  She spoke in French and—­was it because of the language used or of the unusual excitement?—­her voice took on a strange elusive quality utterly unlike the richness of the tones Mark loved so well, yet remained vibrant, haunting in its sibilant lightness.  Never again would he hear it so.  He longed to go, but there was no present way of escape, so he steeled his heart to listen.

“You have come, my beloved,” he heard her say.

“I have come, Carlotta.  I told you that nothing could keep me.  When you wrote telling me where to come, and when and how to signal, I did not delay one minute.”

“I feared to write, Luigi.  Perhaps they are even now watching you.”

“I think they do not know I am here,” he answered.  “I have seen no one watching.  And who knows of our love?  How could they know?”

“They know very much, my Luigi, and I am afraid I should not have called you.  But I wanted you so much.”

“If you had not called me I should have died.  Without you, how could I live?”

“You love me, then, so much?”

“It takes great love to look up to you, Carlotta, and have I not looked?”

“Yes, yes, Luigi, and I love you.”

They wandered down the little lane between the wall and the trees that lined the road, while Mark lay in dumb misery in the grass.  It had been hard before.  It was harder now when he knew for sure.  He must go away, and never see her again.  It was all that was left him, as an honorable man, to do.

Down the road his eye caught a movement as if someone were slipping into the bushes.  Mark watched for a second glimpse of the lovers, but they were far away on the other side.  For a long time there was no other visible movement of the figure that had slipped into the shadows; but the listener could hear softened steps in the underbrush, and the crackling of dead branches.  Was it Saunders who at last