Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/211

 were the glistening, strange black eyes that she had loved. Yet it was not he. She sat motionless with horror and silence. He dropped his tobacco pouch, and groped for it on the ground. Yet she must wait to see if he would recognize her. Why could she not go!—In a moment he rose.

“I must go at once,” he said. “The owl is coming.” Then he added confidentially: “His name isn’t really the owl, but I call him that. I must go and see if he has come.”

She rose too. He stood before her, uncertain. He was a handsome, soldierly fellow, and a lunatic. Her eyes searched him, and searched him, to see if he would recognize her, if she could discover him.

“You don’t know me?” she asked, from the terror of her soul, standing alone.

He looked back at her quizzically. She had to bear his eyes. They gleamed on her, but with no intelligence. He was drawing nearer to her.

“Yes, I do know you,” he said, fixed, intent, but mad, drawing his face nearer hers. Her horror was too great. The powerful lunatic was coming too near to her.

A man approached, hastening.

“The garden isn’t open this morning,” he said.

The deranged man stopped and looked at him. The keeper went to the seat and picked up the tobacco pouch left lying there.

“Don’t leave your tobacco, sir,” he said, taking it to the gentleman in the linen coat.

“I was just asking this lady to stay to lunch,” the latter said politely. “She is a friend of mine.”