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Chapter 8
The silence lengthened. Ned stared miserably before him, his outward eyes unseeing, but his mind\'s eye turned upon that scene in old Saint Denis Cemetery. De Grandin tugged and tugged again at the ends of his mustache till I thought he\'d drag the hairs out by the roots. I could think of nothing which might ease the tension till:

"Of course, the name cut on the tombstone was a piece of pure coincidence," I hazarded. "Most likely the young woman deliberately assumed it to mislead you——"

"And the snake which threatened our young friend, he was an assumption, also, one infers?" de Grandin interrupted.

"N-o, but it could have been a trick. Ned saw an aged Negress in the cemetery, and those old Southern darkies have strange powers——"

"I damn think that you hit the thumb upon the nail that time, my friend," the little Frenchman nodded, "though you do not realize how accurate your diagnosis is." To Ned:

"Have you seen this snake again since coming North?"

"Yes," Ned replied. "I have. I was too stunned to speak when I read the epitaph, and I wandered back to the hotel in a sort of daze and packed my bags in silence. Possibly that\'s why there was no further visitation there. I don\'t know. I do know nothing further happened, though, and when several months had passed with nothing but my memories to remind me of the incident, I began to think I\'d suffered from some sort of walking nightmare. Nella and I went ahead with preparations for our wedding, but three weeks ago the postman brought me this——"

He reached into an inner pocket and drew out an envelope. It was of soft gray paper, edged with silver-gilt, and the address was in tiny, almost unreadable script:

M. édouard Minton,
     30 Rue Carteret 30,
          Harrisonville, N. J.

"U\'m?" de Grandin commented as he inspected it. "It is addressed à la fran?aise. And the letter, may one read it?"

"Of course," Ned answered. "I\'d like you to."

Across de Grandin\'s shoulder I made out the hastily-scrawled missive:

Adoré

Remember your promise and the kiss of blood that sealed it.
Soon I shall call and you must come.

     Pour le temps et pour l\'éternité,

Julie.

"You recognize the writing?" de Grandin asked. "It is——"

"Oh, yes," Ned answered bitterly, "I recognize it; it\'s the same the other note was written in."

"And then?"

The boy smiled bleakly. "I crushed the thing into a ball and threw it on the floor and stamped on it. Swore I\'d die before I\'d keep another rendezvous with her, and——" He broke off, and put trembling hands up to his face.

"The so mysterious serpent came again, one may assume?" de Grandin prompted.

"But it\'s only a phantom snake," I interjected. "At worst it\'s nothing more than a terrifyi............
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