“And when your cousin comes back, what are you going to do?” I asked. She hesitated a moment. “We don’t quite know.” “When do you go to Paris? If you go by the four o’clock train, I may have the pleasure of making the journey with you.” “I don’t think we shall do that. My cousin thinks I had better stay here a few days.” “Oh!” said I; and for five minutes said nothing more. I was wondering what her cousin was, in vulgar parlance, “up to.” I looked up and down the street, but saw nothing that looked like a bright American art-student. At last I took the liberty of observing that Havre was hardly a place to choose as one of the æsthetic stations of a European tour. It was a place of convenience, nothing more; a place of transit, through which transit should be rapid. I recommended her to go to Paris by the afternoon train, and meanwhile to amuse herself by driving to the ancient fortress at the mouth of the harbor,--that picturesque circular structure which bore the name of Francis the First, and looked like a small castle of St. Angelo. (It has lately been demolished.) She listened with much interest; then for a moment she looked grave. “My cousin told me that when he returned he should have something particular to say to me, and that we could do nothing or decide nothing until I should have heard it. But I will make him tell me quickly, and then we will go to the ancient fortress. There is no hurry to get to Paris; there is plenty of time.” She smiled with her softly severe little lips as she spoke those last words. But I, looking at her with a purpose, saw just a tiny gleam of apprehension in her eye. “Don’t tell me,” I said, “that this wretched man is going to give you bad news!” “I suspect it is a little bad, but I don’t believe it is very bad. At any rate, I must listen to it.”