"What name did you say, Monsieur?" The shrewd French face was studying him, gauging the value of his tip. A sudden idea flashed into McTaggart's brain. He would test here and now the value of his title. "I'm the Marquis Maramonte," he answered, steadily watching the black eyes fixed on his. "Pardon, Monsieur?" The man looked puzzled. Then a ray of light illumined his face. "It is ... the English milord? who inherits ... Mon Dieu! what a sad affair! ..." he became voluble--"the papers were full of it ... and Monsieur le feu Marquis has often travelled by this train. He loved well Paris. If Monsieur le Marquis had but given his name..." He backed ceremoniously and threw open the door of an empty compartment. "I will see that Monsieur is not disturbed. He has only to ring. I am here all night. And at Modane I will warn the Customs. Monsieur would like an extra 'couverture'?" McTaggart was smiling in his sleeve. "C'est bien." He tipped the man generously, delighted at the result of his tactics. "Monsieur, sans doute, travels to Siena?--a cold journey ... the passes are full of snow. But Monsieur will be quite undisturbed"--a gleam of mischief came into the dark shrewd face--"one understands Monsieur could not travel with the Church!" This puzzled Peter. He had yet to learn that his Uncle had been a member of the Anti-clerical party. Like most Protestants, he lived in the error that the nearer one approached to Rome the more fervent the Catholicism. He had heard of the two great factions in that city, the "Black" and the "White," without measuring their importance. Moreover, he did not realize the curious apathy of the lower classes in the land of the Saints and that deep-rooted hatred of the Socialist and "Patriot" for monastic institutions and temporal power. But he smiled at the sally, conscious of hidden meaning, and the man, encouraged, lowered his voice. "This berth, milord, was reserved for a German--un banquier Juif--qui vient de Hambourg..." he reached up and removed the ticket from its slot--"we will place him to-night on the road to salvation!" "With the priest?"--McTaggart laughed until he cried as the door closed on his new friend's parting grin. He tried to picture the same scene in England with the typical conductor of a Pullman Car. What a nation it was! Light and witty, with under the froth a curious depth. He thought of its paralyzing series of defeats in the Franco-Prussian war, its mad Revolutions and that marvellous recuperative force which had brought France back to her present era of prosperity. Then he began to dream of Italy; to picture Siena and, in the far distance, Cydonia beside him there ... Cydonia in his arms. With her name on his lips he fell asleep.