it all the more. I will not come further with you towards your carriage,
for I have still a few things to do."

He shook Hillyard by the hand and departed. Hillyard turned from him
towards his sleeping-car, but though his chief anxiety was dispelled,
his reluctance to go was not. And he looked at the long, brightly-lit
train which was to carry him from this busy and high-hearted city with a
desire that it would start before its time, and leave him a derelict
upon the platform. He could not bend his thoughts to the work which was
at his hand. The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their
sparkle and enchantment. Here, here, was the place of life! The
exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when
some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to
success--these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the
war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in
trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the
Germans; the danger of the torpedo was ever present on her voyages, and
the certainty that if she were sunk, and he captured, any means would be
taken to force him to speak before he was shot, was altogether beyond
dispute. Even at this moment he carried hidden in a match-box a little
phial, which never left him, to put the sure impediment between himself
and a forced confession of his aims and knowledge. But he was not aware
of it. How many times had he seen the red light at Europa Point on
Gibraltar's edge change to white, sometimes against the scarlet bars of
dawn, sometimes in the winter against a wall of black! But on the
platform of the Quai d'Orsay station, in a bustle of soldiers going on
short leave to their homes, and rattling with pannikins and
iron-helmets, he could remember none of these consolations.

He reached his carriage.

"Messieurs les voyageurs, en route!" cried the controller.

"What a crowd!" Hillyard grumbled. "Really, it almost disposes one to
say that one will never travel again until this war is over."

He walked along the corridor to his compartment and sat down as the
train started with a jerk. The door stood open, and in a few minutes the
attendant came to it.

"Who is in the next compartment on the other side of the lavatory?"
Hillyard asked.

"A manufacturer of Perpignan and his wife."

"Does he snore?" Hillyard asked. "If he snores I shall not sleep. It
should be an offence against your bye-laws for