ghing through the palms. Then I closed the window
and turned back into the room; and as I stood there a sudden breeze,
which could not have come from without, blew sharply in my face,
extinguishing the candle and sending the long curtains bellying out
into the room. The lamp on the table flashed and smoked and sputtered;
the room was littered with flying papers and catnip leaves. Then the
strange wind died away, and somewhere in the night a cat snarled.

"I turned desperately to my trunk and flung it open. Into it I threw
everything I owned, pell-mell, closed the lid, locked it, and, seizing
my mackintosh and travelling-bag, ran down the stairs, crossed the
court, and entered the night-office of the hotel. There I called up
the sleepy clerk, settled my reckoning, and sent a porter for a cab.

"'Now,' I said, 'what time does the next train leave?'

"'The next train for where?'

"'Anywhere!'

"The clerk locked the safe, and, carefully keeping the desk between
himself and me, motioned the office-boy to look at the time-tables.

"'Next train, 2.10. Brussels--Paris,' read the boy.

"At that moment the cab rattled up by the curbstone, and I sprang in
while the porter tossed my traps on top. Away we bumped over the stony
pavement, past street after street lighted dimly by tall gas-lamps,
and alley after alley brilliant with the glare of villanous all-night
cafe-concerts, and then, turning, we rumbled past the Circus and the
Eldorado, and at last stopped with a jolt before the Brussels station.

"I had not a moment to lose. 'Paris!' I cried--'first-class!' and,
pocketing the book of coupons, hurried across the platform to where
the Brussels train lay. A guard came running up, flung open the door
of a first-class carriage, slammed and locked it after I had jumped
in, and the long train glided from the arched station out into the
starlit morning.

"I was all alone in the compartment. The wretched lamp in the roof
flickered dimly, scarcely lighting the stuffy box. I could not see to
read my time-table, so I wrapped my legs in the travelling-rug and lay
back, staring out into the misty morning. Trees, walls,
telegraph-poles flashed past, and the cinders drove in showers against
the rattling windows. I slept at times, fitfully, and once, springing
up, peered sharply at the opposite seat, possessed with the idea that
somebody was there.

"When the train reached Brussels I was sound asleep, and the guard
awoke me with diff