Benjy took the note, and departed nimbly to find Melisse, while I paced up and down in my uneasiness as to the outcome of the experiment.  A quarter of an hour passed, half an hour, and then I saw Benjy coming through the trees.  He stood before me, chuckling, and drew from his pocket a folded piece of paper.  I gave him the two piastres, warned him if his master or any one inquired for me that I was taking a walk, and bade him begone.  Then I opened the note.

“I will meet you at the bayou, at seven this evening.  Take the path that leads through the garden.”

I read it with a catch of the breath, with a certainty that the happiness of many people depended upon what I should say at that meeting.  And to think of this and to compose myself a little, I made my way to the garden in search of the path, that I might know it when the time came.  Entering a gap in the hedge, I caught sight of the shaded seat under the tree which had been the scene of our first meeting with Antoinette, and I hurried past it as I crossed the garden.  There were two openings in the opposite hedge, the one through which Nick and I had come, and another.  I took the second, and with little difficulty found the path of which the note had spoken.  It led through a dense, semi-tropical forest in the direction of the swamp beyond, the way being well beaten, but here and there jealously crowded by an undergrowth of brambles and the prickly Spanish bayonet.  I know not how far I had walked, my head bent in thought, before I felt the ground teetering under my feet, and there was the bayou.  It was a narrow lane of murky, impenetrable water, shaded now by the forest wall.  Imaged on its amber surface were the twisted boughs of the cypresses of the swamp beyond,—­boughs funereally draped, as though to proclaim a warning of unknown perils in the dark places.  On that side where I stood ancient oaks thrust their gnarled roots into the water, and these knees were bridged by treacherous platforms of moss.  As I sought for a safe resting-place a dull splash startled me, the pink-and-white water lilies danced on the ripples, and a long, black snout pushed its way to the centre of the bayou and floated there motionless.

I sat down on a wide knee that seemed to be fashioned for the purpose, and reflected.  It may have been about half-past five, and I made up my mind that, rather than return and risk explanations, I would wait where I was until Mrs. Temple appeared.  I had much to think of, and for the rest the weird beauty of the place, with its changing colors as the sun fell, held me in fascination.  When the blue vapor stole through the cypress swamp, my trained ear caught the faintest of warning sounds.  Mrs. Temple was coming.

I could not repress the exclamation that rose to my lips when she stood before me.

“I have changed somewhat,” she began quite calmly; “I have changed since you were at Temple Bow.”