far out to sea by the madness of a raging
nor'wester. He had no conception what to do; he had but one resolve--to
keep his secret; if, to do it, he killed himself with the rifle his
sapphire ring had bought.

Carelessly daring always, he sauntered now into the station for which he
had made, without a sign on him that could attract observation; he
wore still the violet velvet Spanish-like dress, the hessians, and the
broad-leafed felt hat with an eagle's feather fastened in it, that he
had worn at the races; and with the gun in his hand there was nothing
to distinguish him from any tourist "milor," except that in one hand he
carried his own valise. He cast a rapid glance around; no warrant
for his apprehension, no announcement of his personal appearance had
preceded him here; he was safe--safe in that; safer still in the fact
that the train rushed in so immediately on his arrival there, that the
few people about had no time to notice or speculate upon him. The coupe
was empty, by a happy chance; he took it, throwing his money down with
no heed that when the little he had left was once expended he would be
penniless, and the train whirled on with him, plunging into the heart of
forest and mountain, and the black gloom of tunnels, and the golden seas
of corn-harvest. He was alone; and he leaned his head on his hands, and
thought, and thought, and thought, till the rocking, and the rushing,
and the whirl, and the noise of the steam on his ear and the giddy
gyrations of his brain in the exhaustion of overstrung exertion,
conquered thought. With the beating of the engine seeming to throb like
the great swinging of a pendulum through his mind, and the whirling
of the country passing by him like a confused phantasmagoria, his eyes
closed, his aching limbs stretched themselves out to rest, a heavy
dreamless sleep fell on him, the sleep of intense bodily fatigue, and he
knew no more.

Gendarmes awoke him to see his visa. He showed it them by sheer
mechanical instinct, and slept again in that dead weight of slumber the
moment he was alone. When he had taken his ticket, and they had asked
him to where it should be, he had answered to their amaze, "to the
farthest place it goes," and he was borne on now unwitting where it
went; through the rich champaign and the barren plains; through the
reddening vintage and over the dreary plateaux; through antique cities,
and across broad, flowing rivers; through the cave of riven rocks,
and