It was Bertini, the mysterious friend of Jules Jeanjean.
I had but to await his return, and by waiting I should learn the truth.
I confess that my heart beat quickly as I watched his small red light disappear along the road.
CHAPTER IX DESCRIBES A NIGHT-VIGIL
The gusty wind had died down.
In the silence of the night I listened to the receding noise of the motor-cycle as it swept down the hill into Cromer town, where I knew Rayner would be on the alert.
The sound died away, therefore I relit my pipe, and mounting again into the driver's seat, sat back thinking—thinking mostly of Lola, and my ill-luck at having missed her.
Before me, in the white glare of the lamps upon the road, where insects of the night, attracted by the radiance, were dancing to their deaths, there arose before me that sweet, perfect face, the face that had so attracted me. I saw her smile—smile at me, as she did when first we had met. Ah! How strange had been our friendship, stranger than novelist had ever imagined. I had loved her—loved as I had never loved before, and she had loved me, with that bright, intense look in her wonderful eyes, the woman's look that can never lie.