The bell rang, the door of the waiting-room opened, and the carefully veiled young woman rushed into a carriage with her youthful companion. The bell rang a second time, and the door of their compartment was closed. "We are alone!" they exclaimed delightedly. But, almost at the same moment, a man of about fifty, dressed completely in black, with a grave and bored expression, entered the carriage and settled himself in a corner. The engine whistled, and the train began to move. The two young people drew back as far as they could from their unwelcome neighbour and began to whisper in English as an additional precaution. "Monsieur," said the other traveller, in the same tongue, and with a much purer British accent, "if you have secrets to tell to each other, you had better not tell them in English before me, for I am an Englishman. I am extremely sorry to annoy you; but there was only a single man in the other compartment, and I make it a rule never to travel alone with one man only.... He had the face of a Judas and this might have tempted him." He pointed to his travelling-bag, which he had thrown in before him on the cushion. "But I shall read if I do not go to sleep." And, indeed, he did make a gallant effort to sleep. He opened his bag, drew out a comfortable cap, put it on his head, and kept his eyes shut for several minutes; then he reopened them with a gesture of impatience, searched in his bag for his spectacles, then for a Greek book. At length he settled himself to read, with an air of deep attention. While getting his book out of the bag he displaced many things piled up hap-hazard. Among others, he drew out of the depths of the bag a large bundle of Bank of England notes, placed it on the seat opposite him, and, before putting it back in the bag, he showed it to the young man, and asked him if there was a place in N---- where he could change bank-notes. "Probably, as it is on the route to England." N---- was the place to which the young people were going. There is quite a tidy little hotel at N----, where people seldom stop except on Saturday evenings. It is held out that the rooms are good, but the host and his helpers are far enough away from Paris to indulge in this provincial vice. The young man whom I have already called by the name of Léon, had been recommended to this hotel some time previously, when he was minus blue spectacles, and, upon his recommendation, his companion and friend had seemed desirous of visiting it. She was, moreover, at that time in such a condition of mind that the walls of a prison would have seemed delightful, if they had enclosed Léon with her.