disturb her.... And his dusty tweeds and traveling cap was no
calling costume....

He walked past again. And this time he paused, on the brink of a
dark canyon of a lane, running back between walls hung with
bougainvillea.

Quite suddenly he remembered that he had told that girl, whose name
he did not know, that he would come. It was a definite promise. It
was an obligation.

He could do nothing less. It might be unwelcome, absurd, a nuisance,
but really it was an obligation.

He sauntered down the lane, keeping carefully in the shadow. He
loitered within that deep-set door--and felt a queer throb of
emotion at the sight of it--and so, sauntering and loitering, he
waited in the darkening night, promising himself disgustedly through
the dragging moments to clear out and be done with this, but still
interminably lingering, his pulses throbbing with that disowned
expectancy.

Very cautiously, the gate began to open.




CHAPTER V

AT THE GARDEN GATE