They travelled all that night, the second since they left home, Janey sleeping in her corner, but Helen sitting sleepless, though worn to death; and next day in the forenoon stopped at a sleepy little French town, by a slow, pale, chalk river, amid interminable lines of poplars. Words could not tell the weariness which possessed Helen, the overmastering desire she felt to lay herself down anywhere, it did not matter where; while at the same time the routine of the continued movement had got into her brain, and it seemed to have become natural to go on and on, watching those long lines of distance, those flying plains, monotonous and endless, those rivers and fields. When the train stopped with a jar, and with cramped limbs they stepped out and stood upon the ordinary soil, the stoppage itself was a shock to Helen’s nerves. It was midday of a bright October day when they drove over the stony pavement in a jumbling omnibus, and rattled into a large square inhabited by a cathedral and town-hall of imposing architecture, with two little soldiers in red uniforms lounging under an archway, and two people crossing the sunshine, going in different directions. The white houses, tall and trim, with their green _persiennes_, the great tower of the church cutting the blue sky, the two figures crossing the sunshine printed themselves vaguely on Helen’s mind. She could not see anything plainly for that vision of her father always before her who was not her father. She did not like to look at him, yet saw his changed countenance and false beard all the time with that sense of the insupportable which only our own flesh and blood ever give us. She could not forget it as Janey forgot, from whose little mind the incident of the night had fled like last year’s snow. Janey ran into the bare, carpetless room at the inn, and climbed up upon the wooden chair at the window, and called to papa--“Why do they have all the curtains drawn at the windows, and why is there nobody in the street, and why are the soldiers so little, and what have they dot red trousers for?” cried Janey. The blow had gone from her recollection. She thought no more of that novelty of the beard. She had slept all night, and she was no longer tired, though she was pale. “Do you mean to stay here, papa?” said Helen. It is dreadful to sit at table with any one and not to speak. She could not bear it; if he would not say anything to her, she must talk to him. “It does not look a very interesting place, you mean? No picture-galleries or fine things to see. That is a pity; but if you do not object to it too much, it suits me to stay here for a little while.” “I do not object at all, papa,” said poor Helen, ready to cry, “only--only----” She looked at him with wistful eyes.