‘Naturally,’ he agreed, ‘you want to go to Paris. But Paris is over.’ ‘Over!’ ‘Finished.’ ‘But then, Monsieur—what is to become—of _me?_’ Barnet turned his face westward, whither the white road led. ‘Where else, for example, may I hope to find—opportunity?’ Barnet made no reply. ‘Perhaps on the Riviera. Or at some such place as Homburg. Or some place perhaps.’ ‘All that,’ said Barnet, accepting for the first time facts that had lain evident in his mind for weeks; ‘all that must be over, too.’ There was a pause. Then the voice beside him broke out. ‘But, Monsieur, it is impossible! It leaves—nothing.’ ‘No. Not very much.’ ‘One cannot suddenly begin to grow potatoes!’ ‘It would be good if Monsieur could bring himself——’ ‘To the life of a peasant! And my wife——You do not know the distinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a peculiar dependent charm. Like some slender tropical creeper—with great white flowers.... But all this is foolish talk. It is impossible that Paris, which has survived so many misfortunes, should not presently revive.’ ‘I do not think it will ever revive. Paris is finished. London, too, I am told—Berlin. All the great capitals were stricken....’ ‘But——! Monsieur must permit me to differ.’ ‘It is so.’ ‘It is impossible. Civilisations do not end in this manner. Mankind will insist.’ ‘On Paris?’ ‘On Paris.’ ‘Monsieur, you might as well hope to go down the Maelstrom and resume business there.’ ‘I am content, Monsieur, with my own faith.’ ‘The winter comes on. Would not Monsieur be wiser to seek a house?’ ‘Farther from Paris? No, Monsieur. But it is not possible, Monsieur, what you say, and you are under a tremendous mistake.... Indeed you are in error.... I asked merely for information....’ ‘When last I saw him,’ said Barnet, ‘he was standing under the signpost at the crest of the hill, gazing wistfully, yet it seemed to me a little doubtfully, now towards Paris, and altogether heedless of a drizzling rain that was wetting him through and through....’ Section 4 This effect of chill dismay, of a doom as yet imperfectly apprehended deepens as Barnet’s record passes on to tell of the approach of winter. It was too much for the great mass of those unwilling and incompetent nomads to realise that an age had ended, that the old help and guidance existed no longer, that times would not mend again, however patiently they held out. They were still in many cases looking to Paris when the first snowflakes of that pitiless January came swirling about them. The story grows grimmer.... If it is less monstrously tragic after Barnet’s return to England, it is, if anything, harder. England was a spectacle of fear-embittered householders, hiding food, crushing out robbery, driving the starving wanderers from every faltering place upon the roads lest they should die inconveniently and reproachfully on the doorsteps of those who had failed to urge them onward....