eva, if I might only thus
escape that terrible custom-house, which every moment loomed up more
terrifically. At length this troubled hour was passed: we had arrived
at Belgarde, and the moment for action had come. I had determined to
avoid the custom-house at all hazards. When the doors were thrown
open I expected to alight, but not to enter. My plan was to find some
sheltering door, or even corner, where I could remain until the others
had presented their passports and were beginning to return, then join
them and take my seat as before. The depot at Belgarde was brilliantly
lighted, and the gendarmes pacing to and fro in the gaslight seemed
not only to have increased in numbers, but to have acquired an
additional ferocity since the day previous.

As I looked but my spirit sank within me. I could only brace myself
for the coming crisis. For several moments nothing was said or done.
The doors remained shut, and no one seemed at all concerned about
our presence. Each minute appeared an hour as I sat there awaiting
my fate. The suspense was becoming too great: I felt that my stock of
self-possession was entirely deserting me. At length I began to hope
that they were satisfied with the examination at Culoz, and would
allow us to pass unchallenged. Just at that moment, as hope was
dawning into certainty, the door opened and the custom-house officer
entered with a polite bow, while a body of gendarmes drew up behind
him upon the platform. He uttered two French words, and I needed no
interpreter to tell me that they were "Passports, gentlemen!"

I shuddered as I saw him standing so near, within reach of my arm.
There were six persons besides myself in the carriage, and I was
occupying a seat beside the door farthest from the platform. Any one
who has seen a European railway-carriage will understand me when I say
that I sat next to the right-hand door, while he had entered by the
left. One by one the passports were handed up to him until he held six
in his hand.

With the rest of the passengers I had taken out my pocket-book and
searched as if for my passport, but had handed none to him, and now I
sat awaiting developments. I saw that he would read the six passports,
and then turn to me for the seventh.

The desperate thought flashed upon me of opening the door and escaping
into the darkness. The carriage itself was so dimly lighted that I
could barely see the face of my opposite neighbor, and I therefore
hoped to be able