ed, as though fleeing
successfully from the scene of a dark deed of his own committing.

After a long and tiresome journey, not made pleasanter by having to
change four or five times, he arrived late in the evening at Eu, where
he spent the night. The next morning, an hour's drive in a hotel
omnibus brought him to Ault, a small market-town in the department of
Somme, which the Americans had recommended to him as the quietest,
cheapest, most unpretending, and at the same time picturesquely
situated of any of the seaside places on the north coast of France, at
least as far as Dieppe.

Wilhelm found Ault to be all it had been described. The little place
presented a well-to-do, self-respecting appearance. The High Street, at
right angles with the shore, and rising gently toward the higher,
billowy country beyond, was wide and straight as a dart, and
scrupulously clean; the roadway was macadamized, and a flagged pavement
ran along the two rows of houses. At its upper end, broad and defiant,
was a wonderful mediaeval church in the earliest Gothic style, with
high pointed windows, a severely beautiful west door, and a mighty
square tower. The church blocked the way, and forced the street to make
a bend in order to pass round it. This building, which would have
adorned a capital, stood there haughty and arrogant like a gigantic
knight in full tilting armor in the midst of the common people, and
seemed to wave the simple, unpretentious provincial houses to right and
left with a lordly gesture so that nothing might intercept his view of
the sea. Beside the High Street there were a few little side alleys,
mostly inhabited by locksmiths, who worked with untiring industry from
morning till night, keeping up a cheerful but far from unpleasing din
which, mingled with the roar of the breakers below, reached the ear as
a soft musical ring of metal. The only prominently ugly features in the
charming picture were the few villas on the neighboring heights, built
by retired Paris grocers and haberdashers; liliputian, pretentious,
with blatant, highly-colored facades, ludicrous imitations of baronial
fortresses, Venetian palaces, or Renaissance chateaux.

The inhabitants of Ault were a peaceable, sober-minded people. No one
was ever drunk, nor was the sound of quarreling ever to be heard. There
were few public-houses; several places, however, dignified by the name
of cafes. The natives were so far accustomed to summer visitors that
they d