he eighteenth century. Intolerable was the strain of the
slow-passing and empty minutes. Long before seven o'clock I was back at
the Vingtieme.

I sat there just where I had sat for luncheon. Air came in listlessly
through the open door behind me. Now and again Rose or Berthe appeared
for a moment. I had told them I would not order any dinner till Mr.
Soames came. A hurdy-gurdy began to play, abruptly drowning the noise
of a quarrel between some Frenchmen further up the street. Whenever the
tune was changed I heard the quarrel still raging. I had bought another
evening paper on my way. I unfolded it. My eyes gazed ever away from it
to the clock over the kitchen door....

Five minutes, now, to the hour! I remembered that clocks in restaurants
are kept five minutes fast. I concentrated my eyes on the paper. I vowed
I would not look away from it again. I held it upright, at its full
width, close to my face, so that I had no view of anything but it....
Rather a tremulous sheet? Only because of the draught, I told myself.

My arms gradually became stiff; they ached; but I could not drop
them--now. I had a suspicion, I had a certainty. Well, what then?...
What else had I come for? Yet I held tight that barrier of newspaper.
Only the sound of Berthe's brisk footstep from the kitchen enabled me,
forced me, to drop it, and to utter:

'What shall we have to eat, Soames?'

'Il est souffrant, ce pauvre Monsieur Soames?' asked Berthe.

'He's only--tired.' I asked her to get some wine--Burgundy--and whatever
food might be ready. Soames sat crouched forward against the table,
exactly as when last I had seen him. It was as though he had never
moved--he who had moved so unimaginably far. Once or twice in the
afternoon it had for an instant occurred to me that perhaps his journey
was not to be fruitless--that perhaps we had all been wrong in our
estimate of the works of Enoch Soames. That we had been horribly right
was horribly clear from the look of him. But 'Don't be discouraged,' I
falteringly said. 'Perhaps it's only that you--didn't leave enough time.
Two, three centuries hence, perhaps--'

'Yes,' his voice came. 'I've thought of that.'

'And now--now for the more immediate future! Where are you going to
hide? How would it be if you caught the Paris express from Charing
Cross? Almost an hour to spare. Don't go on to Paris. Stop at Calais.
Live in Calais. He'd never think of looking for you in Calais.'

'It's like my luck,'