s
for resolves! Alas for the Lady Henrietta! Alas for Isabella! For
Paul, as for all of us, the mutability of human affairs still existed.
Were it not so, this record never would have been written.

CHAPTER II

With much grinding of brakes and hiss of escaping steam, the express
at last stopped slowly in the little station and the door of Paul's
compartment was swung open by the officious guard with a "Lucerne,
your Lordship," which effectually aroused him from his reverie.

Paul quietly stepped out of the car, and waited with the air of one
among familiar scenes, while his man Baxter collected the luggage and
dexterously convoyed it through the hostile army of customs men to a
_fiacre_. In the midst of the bustle and confusion, as Paul stood
there on the platform, his straight manly form was the cynosure of all
eyes. A fond mamma with a marriageable daughter half unconsciously
sighed aloud at the thought of such a son-in-law. A pair of slender
French dandies outwardly scorned, but inwardly admired his athletic
figure, so visibly powerful, even in repose.

But all oblivious to the attention he was attracting, Paul waited with
passive patience for the survey of his luggage. For was not all this
an old, old story to him, a trifling disturbance on the path of his
pilgrimage? When one travels to travel, each station is an incident;
not so to him who journeys to an end.

But Paul was not destined to remain wholly uninterrupted. As the other
travellers descended from the carriage and formed a little knot upon
the platform, the Comtesse de Boistelle, now occupied with a betufted
poodle frisking at the end of a leash, strolled by him. As she passed
Paul she dropped a jewelled reticule, which he promptly recovered for
her, offering it with a grave face and a murmured "_Permettez moi,
Madame_."

The Comtesse gently breathed a thousand thanks, allowing her carefully
gloved hand to brush Paul's arm.

"Monsieur is wearied with the journey, perhaps?" she said in a low
voice. And her eyes added more than solicitude.

Paul did not deny it. Instead, he raised his green Alpine hat formally
and turned impassively to meet his man, who had by then stowed away
the boxes in the Waiting _fiacre_.

In the group of Paul's late companions stood the American girl who had
sat facing him all the way from Paris. He was no sooner out of earshot
than--

"Did you see, Mamma?" she whispered to the matron beside her.

"See what, Dai