repeated the folly, the offense, but again ineffectually, and I had
the decency to desist.

"An hour later, while absorbed in some of my infernal studies, I
heard, or thought I heard, my signal answered. Flinging down my
books I sprang to the wall and as steadily as my beating heart would
permit gave three slow taps upon it. This time the response was
distinct, unmistakable: one, two, three--an exact repetition of my
signal. That was all I could elicit, but it was enough--too much.

"The next evening, and for many evenings afterward, that folly went
on, I always having 'the last word.' During the whole period I was
deliriously happy, but with the perversity of my nature I persevered
in my resolution not to see her. Then, as I should have expected, I
got no further answers. 'She is disgusted,' I said to myself, 'with
what she thinks my timidity in making no more definite advances'; and
I resolved to seek her and make her acquaintance and--what? I did
not know, nor do I now know, what might have come of it. I know only
that I passed days and days trying to meet her, and all in vain; she
was invisible as well as inaudible. I haunted the streets where we
had met, but she did not come. From my window I watched the garden
in front of her house, but she passed neither in nor out. I fell
into the deepest dejection, believing that she had gone away, yet
took no steps to resolve my doubt by inquiry of my landlady, to whom,
indeed, I had taken an unconquerable aversion from her having once
spoken of the girl with less of reverence than I thought befitting.

"There came a fateful night. Worn out with emotion, irresolution and
despondency, I had retired early and fallen into such sleep as was
still possible to me. In the middle of the night something--some