At Savona the train stopped and the passengers were told that they could go no farther, as one of the small bridges across the streams that rush down from the mountain into the sea had broken down during the night. They must wait for the engineer and workmen who had been summoned by telegraph, stay there half a day perhaps. It was early morning. The Italian town was just awaking in one of those hazy dawns which promise extreme heat during the day. While the passengers scattered, seeking refuge in hotels or restaurants, or wandering about the town, de Gery, distressed by the delay, tried to find some way of avoiding the loss of ten hours or more. He thought of poor Jansoulet, whose honor and whose life might perhaps be saved by the money he was bringing, of his dear Aline, the thought of whom had not left him once during his journey, any more than the portrait she had given him. Suddenly it occurred to him to hire one of the _calesinos_, four-horse vehicles which make the journey from Genoa to Nice along the Italian Corniche, a fascinating drive often taken by foreigners, lovers, and gamblers who have been lucky at Monaco. The driver agreed to be at Nice early; but even though he should reach there no sooner than by waiting for the train, the impatient traveller felt an immense longing to be relieved of the necessity of pacing the streets, to know that the space between him and his desire decreased with every revolution of the wheels. Ah! on a lovely June morning, at our friend Paul's age and with one's heart overflowing with love as his was, to fly along the white Corniche road behind four horses, is to feel an intoxication of travel that words cannot describe. On the left, at a depth of a hundred feet, lies the sea flecked with foam, from the little round bays along the shore to the hazy horizon where the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky melt together; red or white sails, like birds with a single wing spread to the breeze, the slender silhouettes of steamers with a little smoke trailing behind like a farewell, and along the beaches, of which you catch glimpses as the road winds, fishermen no larger than sea-mews in their boats, lying at anchor, which look like nests. Then the road descends, follows a rapid downward slope along the base of cliffs and headlands almost perpendicular. The cool breeze from the water reaches you there, blends with the thousand little bells on the harnesses, while at the right, on the mountain-side, the pines and green oaks rise tier above tier, with gnarled roots protruding from the sterile soil, and cultivated olive-trees in terraces, as far as a broad ravine, white and rocky, bordered with green plants which tell of the passage of the waters, the dry bed of a torrent up which toil laden mules, sure of their footing among the loose shingle, where a washerwoman stoops beside a microscopic pool, a few drops remaining from the great winter freshets. From time to time you rumble through the one street of a