May looked at his watch; it was seven o’clock. Only five hours more of this awful day remained! His condition was one of absolute nervous prostration; and he looked in a glass to see if his hair had yet turned gray. Could it be that they would none of them appear? He felt almost hungry, but that eating was out of the question for one in his position. He could, however, take a biscuit and a glass of claret; and this he did.
But May was fated that day to have hard luck with his uncle’s wine. Hardly had he begun to sip the glass, when a loud knocking at the very door of his pavilion made him drop it, and again seek refuge in his fountain hiding-place. From there he looked through the jets of water and saw that the knocker was none other than the faithful Schmidt.
May hastened back again to the pavilion and opened the door.
“What do you mean by this?” said he, angrily. “Did I not tell you not to come out under any circumstances, unless you heard a pistol-shot?”
But, alas! The effect of the solitude, the heat, and the excitement of his master’s strange behavior had been too much, even for the perfect valet. Moreover, he had felt it his duty to finish all his master’s so precipitately abandoned bottles, lest they should fall into the hands of the enemy. If Mr. Schmidt was not tipsy, it was clear that he soon would be. He had been leaning heavily against the door, and as his master opened it suddenly, he fell into the room, head over heels to the floor; and there, without getting up, he endeavored to bow apologetically, and swayed to and fro with the effort, smiling a meaningless smile and holding a visiting-card in his right hand. May took it mechanically. It was edged in deep black; and upon it he read the simple legend:
Mrs. Terwilliger Dehon.
IV.
THE KEEPING OF THE TRYST.
May grasped the half-drunken valet by the coat. “And you let her in?” said he.
“I said, m’sieu’,” gasped out poor Schmidt, “that m’sieu’, was here.”
With a groan of mingled rage and terror, May flew to the door and made it fast. Then he took Schmidt by his offending coat and shoved, rather than led, him into the subaqueous passageway. When they emerged upon the island, May said, with a final shake: