Joubert found me in the dining-room.

"Joubert," I shouted, "the swiftest horses—quick!—and a carriage to take me to Etiolles! You will drive me."

Joubert glanced at me and left the room like a flash.

I walked up and down. She had been here an hour ago—here an hour ago—and I had been walking the streets unconscious of the fact! The war which had threatened to destroy my last hope had brought her, perhaps, to my door, and I had been dining at a cafÉ! I had come slowly home through the streets, and she was here waiting for me! Was she leaving France? Was Etiolles but a stage on the journey? And if she found that I was not there, what would she do? Would she return, or—go on?

I sprang to the bell and rang it violently.

"The horses! The horses!" I cried. "God in heaven! are they never coming?"

"The horses are at the door, monsieur."

I rushed out, seized my hat, which the man handed me; he opened the door, and there stood a closed carriage; two powerful greys were harnessed to it, and Joubert was on the box.

"Joubert," I said, "drive as you never have driven before. My life is in your hands!" Then we started.

And now, as if called up by nightmare, the crowd in the streets, which I had forgotten, impeded our progress. The Rue St. HonorÉ was like a fair. As, sitting in the carriage, that was compelled to go at a walking pace, I looked out of the window at the senseless illuminations, the brutal or foolish faces, I could have welcomed at once a German army that would have swept a clear path for me.

We passed the gates of Paris without hindrance, and then down a long street lined with houses. It was after ten o'clock now, but these houses, in which dwelt poor folk, were ablaze from basement to garret.

The good news of the war had spread itself here; the great national rejoicing had found an echo even in this street, where men slept sound as a rule, as men sleep who have passed the day labouring in a factory.

The horses had now settled into a swinging trot. Half a dozen times I lowered the window to urge Joubert, but I refrained. There was still twenty miles before us. If one of our horses broke down, it was highly improbable that we could get another.

The houses broke up, and became replaced by trees; market-gardens lay on either side of the way. Looking back, I could see Paris. Not the city, but the furnace glare that its gas-lit streets and cafÉs cast on the sky. We passed forts, huge black shadows marked in the darkness by the glitter of a sentry's bayonet or the swinging lantern of a patrol. We passed down the long street of Charenton, and then the wheels of the carriage rumbled on the bridge that crosses the river, and we were in the true country, with great spaces of gloom marking the fields, and marked here and there with the dim, patient light of a farmhouse window or the firefly dance of a shepherd's lantern.

Up till now I had watched intently the passing objects: the houses, stray people, and lights; but now there was nothing to watch but dim shapes and vague shadows. Up to this I had controlled thought, forcing myself to wait without thinking for the event, but now, alone in the midst of night, with nothing to tell of the surrounding world but the rumble of the carriage wheels and the beat of the horse-hoofs on the road, thought assumed dominance, and would not be driven away. Nay, it returned with a suggestion that froze my heart.

"If she has gone to the Pavilion, she will leave her carriage in the Avenue and go there on foot—she will cross the drawbridge. Ah, yes; the drawbridge! Well, suppose that the drawbridge is up! God in heaven! will she see it?"

It froze my heart.

What time would Madame Ancelot retire, and would she raise the drawbridge?

I knew very well that the drawbridge was always raised, last thing at night: the tramp-infested forest made this necessary. And I knew very well that Madame Ancelot was in the habit of retiring at nine o'clock. Still, to-night was a night in a thousand. Old Fauchard had, without doubt, dropped into the Pavilion to talk about the great news of the war.

I put my head out of the window.

"Quicker, Joubert!"

"Oui, oui," came his voice, followed by the sound of the whip. The night air struck me in the face like a cold hand; and, looking back, I could still see the light of Paris reflected from the sky, paler now and more contracted in the vast and gloomy circle of night.

It was cloudy over Paris, but the clouds were breaking, and the piercing light of a star, here and there, shone through the rents. The moon was rising, too, and her light touched the clouds.

Ah! this must be Villeneuve St. Georges, this long street to which the trees and hedgerows have given place.

I know the road to Etiolles well, but to-night it all seemed changed.

We passed hamlets and villages, and now at last we were nearing Etiolles. I could tell it by the big houses on either side of the road, houses with walled-in gardens and grass lawns, where young ladies played croquet in the long summer afternoons, so that a person on the road could hear the click of the balls and the laughter of the players. The moon had fully risen now, casting her light on the houses, the walls, the vineyards rolling towards the river, the trees and shrubs.

Suddenly, as though an adamantine door had been flung across the road barring our way the carriage stopped; one of the horses had fallen as if felled by an axe. The pole was broken. Joubert was on his knees by the head of the fallen horse, dark blood was streaming from its nostrils in the vague moonlight that was now touching the white road.

Inexorable Fate.

We were two miles from the chÂteau gates, but across the fields and through the forest of Senart there away straight as the crow dies to the Pavilion.

I do not remember leaving Joubert; suddenly the fields were around me and I was running. My mind driven to madness had matched itself against fate. "I will conquer you," it cried. "No dead fate shall oppose my living will. Let the past be gone. I have sinned, but I have suffered. If she is dead I will fling myself after her and seize her soul in my arms forever."

"You are mine—living or dead, you are mine."

I must have shouted the words as I ran for I heard the words ringing in my ears. Then fell on me as I ran Delirium, or was it the past.

I was in the forest now, the vague light was filled with shapes. A form sprang at me, it was Von Lichtenberg. I struck at it and passed on.

The iron man of the bell tower struck at me with his hammer, I seized him and he turned to mist.

And now a form was running beside me trying to hold me back, it was Gretel, she tripped me up with her foot. I fell, she vanished and her foot turned to the root of a tree. And the tree turned to Vogel.

He passed me as I ran outstripping him, and from the darkness before me now broke a form, it was little Carl.

We were in the forest of Lichtenberg, the lake before us. I cried to him to stop. For only answer came the splash of the water, the cry of a child—the gasping of a person drowning in the dark.

Death lay in the water. I plunged to meet him and seized a struggling form.

But the form was not the form of Death, but the form of a woman living and sweet.

A moment later and I would have missed by all eternity the love that had been waiting for me since the beginning of Time.

Fate is strong, but the will of man is stronger.