radictory news from morning to night;
a new rumour at every cafe, a scuffle, or the makings of one, at every
street corner, and hour by hour a steady stream of manifestoes,
placards, handbills, caricatures, and broadsheets of opprobrious
verse--the din of it all went by me like the vain noises of a dream as I
trod the pavements, intent upon my own hopes and perplexities. I cannot
think that this was mere selfishness; rather, a deep disgust was weaning
me from my country. If this Paris indeed were the reality, then was I
the phantasm, the _revenant_; then was France--the France for which I
had fought and my parents gone to the scaffold--a land that had never
been, and our patriotism the shadow of a shade. Judge me not too hardly
if in the restless, aimless perambulations of those five days I crossed
the bridge between the country that held neither kin nor friends for me,
but only my ineffectual past, and the country wherein one human
creature, if only one, had use for my devotion.

On the sixth day--that is, April 5th--my patience broke down. I took my
resolution over lunch and a bottle of Beaujolais, and walked straight
back from the restaurant to my lodgings, where I asked Madame Jupille
for pen, ink, and paper, and sat down to advertise Mr. Romaine that, for
good or ill, he might expect me in London within twenty-four hours of
the receipt of this letter.

I had scarce composed the first sentence, when there came a knock at the
door and Madame Jupille announced that two gentlemen desired to see me.
"Show them up," said I, laying down my pen with a leaping heart; and in
the doorway a moment later stood--my cousin Alain!

He was alone. He glanced with a grin of comprehension from me to the
letter, advanced, set his hat on the table beside it, and his gloves
(after blowing into them) beside his hat.

"My cousin," said he, "you show astonishing agility from time to time;
but on the whole you are damned easy to hunt."

I had risen. "I take it you have pressing business to speak of, since
amid your latest political occupations you have been at pains to seek me
out. If so, I will ask you to be brief."

"No pains at all," he corrected affably. "I have known all the time that
you were here. In fact, I expected you some while before you arrived,
and sent my man, Paul, with a message."

"A message?"

"Certainly--touching a letter from _la belle Flora_. You received it?
The message, I mean."

"Then it was not----"

"N