Menko warmly grasped his friend’s thin and emaciated hand; and, the last farewell spoken to the fanatic departing for some tragical adventure, the Hungarian became more sombre and troubled than before, and Labanoff’s appearance seemed like a doubtful apparition.  He returned to his longing to see the end of the most anxious day of his life.

At last, late in the evening, Michel entered his coupe, and was driven away-down the Rue d’Aumale, through the Rue Pigalle and the Rue de Douai, to the rondpoint of the Place Clichy, the two lanterns casting their clear light into the obscurity.  The coupe then took the road to Maisons-Lafitte, crossing the plain and skirting wheat-fields and vineyards, with the towering silhouette of Mont Valerien on the left, and on the right, sharply defined against the sky, a long line of hills, dotted with woods and villas, and with little villages nestling at their base, all plunged in a mysterious shadow.

Michel, with absent eyes, gazed at all this, as Trilby rapidly trotted on.  He was thinking of what lay before him, of the folly he was about to commit, as he had said to Labanoff.  It was a folly; and yet, who could tell?  Might not Marsa have reflected?  Might she not; alarmed at his threats, be now awaiting him?  Her exquisite face, like a lily, rose before him; an overwhelming desire to annihilate time and space took possession of him, and he longed to be standing, key in hand, before the little gate in the garden wall.

He was well acquainted with the great park of Maisons-Lafitte, with the white villas nestling among the trees.  On one side Prince Tchereteff’s house looked out upon an almost desert tract of land, on which a racecourse had been mapped out; and on the other extended with the stables and servants’ quarters to the forest, the wall of the Avenue Lafitte bounding the garden.  In front of the villa was a broad lawn, ending in a low wall with carved gates, allowing, through the branches of the oaks and chestnuts, a view of the hills of Cormeilles.

After crossing the bridge of Sartrouville, Michel ordered his coachman to drive to the corner of the Avenue Corneille, where he alighted in the shadow of a clump of trees.

“You will wait here, Pierre,” he said, “and don’t stir till I return.”

He walked past the sleeping houses, under the mysterious alleys of the trees, until he reached the broad avenue which, cutting the park in two, ran from the station to the forest.  The alley that he was seeking descended between two rows of tall, thick trees, forming an arch overhead, making it deliciously cool and shady in the daytime, but now looking like a deep hole, black as a tunnel.  Pushing his way through the trees and bushes, and brushing aside the branches of the acacias, the leaves of which fell in showers about him, Michel reached an old wall, the white stones of which were overgrown with ivy.  Behind the wall the wind rustled amid the pines and oaks like the vague murmur of a coming storm.  And there, at the end of the narrow path, half hidden by the ivy, was the little gate he was seeking.  He cautiously brushed aside the leaves and felt for the keyhole; but, just as he was about to insert the key, which burned in his feverish fingers, he stopped short.