The dusk was deepening quickly into darkness. As she ran down the open stretch of hillside between her villa and the little town, she saw the lights blaze out upon the terrace of Monte Carlo. Far below her, upon her right, they shone like great opals, each with a heart of fire. Pamela stopped for a second to regain her breath before she reached Roquebrune. The sudden brightness of those lights carried her thoughts backwards to the years when the height of trouble for her had been the sickness of a favourite horse, and all her life was an eager expectation. On so many evenings she had seen those lights flash out through the gathering night while she had sat talking in her garden with the little schoolmaster whom she was now to revisit. To both of them those lights had been a parable. They had glowed in friendliness and promise--thus she had read the parable--out of a great, bright, gay world of men and women, upon a cool, twilit garden of youth and ignorance. She thought of what had come in place of all that imagined gaiety. To the schoolmaster, disappointment and degradation; while, as for herself, she felt very lonely upon this evening. "The world is a place of great sadness." Thus had M. Giraud spoken when Pamela had returned to Roquebrune from her first season in London, and the words now came back to her again. She ran on through the narrow streets of Roquebrune, her white frock showing in the light from the shops and windows. She wore no hat upon her head, and more than one of the people in the street called to her as she passed and asked her whether she needed help. Help, indeed, she did need, but not from them. She came to the tiny square whence the steps led down to the station. On the west side of the square stood the school-house, and, close by, the little house of the schoolmaster. A light burned in a window of the ground floor. Pamela knocked loudly upon the door. She heard a chair grate upon the floor-boards. She knocked again, and the door was opened. It was the schoolmaster himself who opened it. "M. Giraud!" she exclaimed, drawing her breath quickly. The schoolmaster leaned forward and stared at the white figure which stood in the darkness just outside his porch; but he made no reply. "Let me in!" cried Pamela; and he made a movement as though to bar the way. But she slipped quickly past him into the room. He closed the door slowly and followed her. The room was bare. A deal table, a chair or two, and a few tattered books on a hanging bookshelf made up all its furniture. Pamela leaned against the wall with a hand to her heart. M. Giraud saw her clearly now. She stood only a few feet from him, in the light of the room. She was in distress; yet he spoke harshly. "Why have you come?" he cried; and she answered, piteously, "I want your help."