He opened his window, a French casement, and looked out upon the night.

Then he observed that Grace, too, was keeping vigil; for a faint light shot from her window and sparkled on the branches of the plane-tree in her little front garden.

“And that,” thought Henry, sadly, “is all I can see of her.  Close to her, yet far off—­further than ever now.”

A deep sadness fell on him, sadness and doubt.  Suppose he were to lay a trap for her to-morrow, and catch her at her own door!  What good would it do?  He put himself in her place.  That process showed him at once she would come no more.  He should destroy her little bit of patient, quiet happiness, the one daily sunbeam of her desolate life.

By-and-by, feeling rather drowsy, he lay down in his clothes to wait for Ransome’s return.  He put out his light.

From his bed he could see Grace’s light kiss the plane-tree.

He lay and fixed his eyes on it, and thought of all that had passed between them; and, by-and-by, love and grief made his eyes misty, and that pale light seemed to dance and flicker before him.

About midnight, he was nearly dozing off, when his ear caught a muttering outside; he listened, and thought he heard some instrument grating below.

He rose very softly, and crept to the window, and looked keenly through his casement.

He saw nothing at first; but presently a dark object emerged from behind the plane-tree I have mentioned, and began to go slowly, but surely up it.

Little feared it was a burglar about to attack that house which held his darling.

He stepped softly to his rifle and loaded both barrels.  It was a breech-loader.  Then he crawled softly to the window, and peered out, rifle in hand.

The man had climbed the tree, and was looking earnestly in at one of the windows in Grace’s house.  His attention was so fixed that he never saw the gleaming eye which now watched him.

Presently the drifting clouds left the moon clear a minute, and Henry Little recognized the face of Frederick Coventry.

He looked at him, and began to tremble.

Why did he tremble?  Because—­after the first rush of surprise—­rage, hate, and bloody thoughts crossed his mind.  Here was his enemy, the barrier to his happiness, come, of his own accord, to court his death.  Why not take him for a burglar, and shoot him dead?  Such an act might be blamed, but it could not be punished severely.

The temptation was so great, that the rifle shook in his hands, and a cold perspiration poured down his back.

He prayed to God in agony to relieve him from this temptation; he felt that it was more than he could bear.

He looked up.  Coventry was drawing up a short iron ladder from below.  He then got hold of it and fixed it on the sill of Grace’s window.

Little burst his own window open.  “You villain!” he cried, and leveled his rifle at him.