"Oh, Athalie," he said in a low voice, "I were worse than a villain to suspect thee." At that moment midnight tolled from the dull old bell of Crail, and the strangeness of the sound brought keenly home to the lonely heart of Lemercier that he was in a foreign land. The hour passed, but the Major did not return. Morning came. With gray dawn Lemercier was awake, and a few minutes found him dressed and ready. He attired himself with particular care, putting on a coat and vest, the embroidery of which presented as few conspicuous marks as possible to an antagonist's eye. He clasped his coat from the cravat to the waist, and compressed his embroidered belt. He adjusted his white silk roll-up stockings with great exactness; tied up the flowing curls of his wig with a white ribbon, placed a scarlet feather in his hat, and then took his sword. The edge and point of the blade, the shell and pommel, grasp and guard of the hilt were all examined with scrupulous care for the last time; he drew on his gloves with care, and giving to the landlord the reckoning, which he might never return to pay, Lemercier called for his horse and rode through the main street of Crail. Following the directions he had received from his host, he hastily quitted the deserted and grass-grown street of the burgh (the very aspect of which he feared would chill him), and proceeded towards the ancient obelisk still known as the _Standing-stone of Sauchope_, which had been named as the place of rendezvous by that messenger who had not returned, and against whom M. Lemercier felt his anger a little excited. It was a cool March morning; the sky was clear and blue, and the few silver clouds that floated through it, became edged with gold as the sun rose from his bed in the eastern sea--that burnished sea from which the cool fresh breeze swept over the level coast. The fields were assuming a vernal greenness, the buds were swelling on hedge and tree, and the vegetation of the summer that was to come--the summer that Lemercier might never see--was springing from amid the brown remains of the autumn that had gone, an autumn that he had passed with Athalie amid the gayeties and gardens of Paris and Versailles.