Luc de Clapiers stood on the Pont Neuf gazing over the great city.

Below him curled the strong grey river that surged and swirled round the stout central pier of the bridge; barges and boats with drab and russet sails were passing up and down on the tide; from either bank rose the fine tourelles, the splendid buildings, the straight houses and tall churches of Paris.

The day was sunless, the sky heavy with loose clouds; the steady, cheerful life of the city passed Luc in chariots, coaches, sedans, on foot, and was absorbed into the fashionable quarters on the left and the poorer quarters on the right.

Luc was acutely aware how complete a sense of isolation and of loneliness this standing against the parapet of a bridge with busy footsteps passing and never stopping gave him; all these people were going to, or coming from, somewhere; all might be imagined as having some definite occupation or pleasure or purpose; all might be considered as knowing this city well, as having some claim on it, if only the claim of familiarity, while he was a stranger with his place still to find.

He had been in Paris a fortnight, and it was extraordinary how like a shut door the city still seemed to him; he felt more utterly apart from the spirit, motion, and meaning of the capital than he had ever done when in Aix.

Inscrutable buildings portentous with locked secrets, inscrutable river laden with boats going with unknown cargoes to unknown destinations, inscrutable faces of rich and poor passing to and fro, beautiful youth in a chariot flashing across the public way to be absorbed in a narrow turning and seen no more, old age on foot vanishing painfully in the dusk; the crowd leaving the opera, the play, with pomp and laughter and comment; the shopkeepers behind their counters, the idlers about the cafÉs, the priests, the sudden black splendour of a funeral with candles looking strange in the daylight and the crucifix exacting the homage of bent knees, all inscrutable to those who held not the key of it, passing and repassing about the river, and the Louvre and the church on the isle.

Mingled with these actual objects were the spiritual forces of which the city was full, and which were to Luc fully as potent as the things he saw; the air was full of an extraordinary inspiration, as if every man who had struggled and thought and died in Paris had left some part of his aspirations behind to enrich the city.

A wonderful gorgeous history was held in the stones of the ancient buildings, in the holy glooms of the churches, in the crooked lines of the famous streets; her children bloomed and faded, but the city itself was imperishable, a thing never to be touched with decay.

No one once loving this city could ever love another so well.

Luc found the immortal charm of Paris enwrapping him with a sad power; she was the cradle of all the glory of the Western world, the epitome of all that man had achieved in this his last civilization; she had seen all his passions burn themselves out and live again. But as yet Luc was on her threshold, unadmitted, unnoticed.

None of his three letters had been answered. The truth of M. de Biron’s advice was being proved every day: he was neither wanted nor heeded; there was no place ready for him nor any hand held out to welcome. Yet Luc, leaning against the heavy parapet and listening to the steady sound of the passing footsteps, watching the deep eddies of the water and the grey outlines of the buildings, felt no discouragement; he measured his soul against even the mighty city, and found it sufficient.

Last night he had walked past the hotel from which the Countess Carola had written. There had been a festival within; all the windows were lit, and the courtyard was blocked with carriages.

Luc had smiled to think of her dancing behind those walls—what if he had come into her presence and asserted his claim to friendship based on that march of horror from Prague?

He had not entered her mansion, nor did he think of waiting on her; why he could not tell, save that all his life he had shrunk from putting his dreams to the test of actuality: and he had dreams about the Countess Carola, visions of her and pleasant imaginings, but no knowledge; he did not care to alter this delicate attitude towards the only woman who had ever interested him. No visions clouded his remembrance of ClÉmence de SÉguy: she stood out in his mind, clear-cut and definite; he thought he knew her perfectly, to the bottom of her simple soul.

She was pleasant to think on; he conjured up her picture now, rosy, enveloped in a multitude of frills and ribbons—the grey city seemed the greyer by contrast.

Then the mighty currents of the river swept away her picture as a rose-leaf is swept away by a torrent, and the swish of it against the ancient bridge beat on the heart of Luc the three words: endeavour—achievement—fame.

The dusk was gathering, blurring the lines of the city, and a fine rain began to fall. Luc moved from his station, and walked slowly back to his lodgings in the fashionable Rue du Bac; his father had insisted on his living with proper magnificence, and Luc felt his only sting of failure when he considered the so far useless expenses.

When he entered his quiet, handsome rooms he found a letter.

His servant had been to the inn that Luc had given as his Paris address, and had found this missive, which had been left the previous day by a lackey whose splendour had startled the host. Luc’s heart fluttered; he thought of the King, of M. Amelot——

When he had torn the seal, he saw it was from M. de Voltaire.

The great man wrote with charm, with generous frankness: he praised his young correspondent’s taste, yet pointed out where it went astray; he warmly encouraged the love of literature, the thirst for knowledge—he hoped the Marquis would write to him again.

Luc put the letter down with a thrill of pure, intense pleasure; the blood flushed into his cheeks and his heart beat quickly; at that moment he felt an adoration for its writer.

He did not notice the darkening room, the rain that was falling steadily without; he sat motionless on the stiff striped sofa forming picture after picture of endless glory, for all his winged fancies had been stirred into life by this encouragement.

Presently, before the room was quite dark, he wrote the following letter to M. Amelot:—

This letter was written in a breath and on the instant sealed and dispatched; the inspiration to write it had come from the few lines of M. de Voltaire’s note. It was not a letter many would have sent to a Minister. Luc was not versed in the method of addressing the great; he wrote from his heart, urged on by the burning desire for action, for achievement, for fame.

When the letter had gone he went to the window and looked out on the steady rain and straight-fronted houses, lit with the glimmer of oil lamps, that hid Paris from his vision.

What was the cloud, the confusion, the barrier that came between him and the attainment of his desires? There was some key somewhere that unlocked the door of Paris, of life—of that life which meant the scope to exercise, to strain the energies, to put the utmost into endeavour. Where was such a life?

For ten years Luc had been waiting—always round the corner was the promised goal—everything had been beautiful with the glamour of romance. But, looked at coldly, what had these ten years been but wasted? Luc was starting fresh on another road, and seemed as far as ever from the summit of his ambitions. Yet it could not be possible that he was going to remain for ever obscure; he could not believe that.

There was a little narrow balcony with a fine railing before his window. Luc drew the curtains, opened the wet glass, and stepped out. The air was pure and clear, the rain fresh and delicate. The long twisted length of the Rue du Bac glistened with the reflected light of the pools between the cobbles.

Luc thrilled to the mystery and inspiration of the silent city with its hidden activities, to the subtle pleasure of the rain and the lamplight. He thought—he knew not why—of the King, young, ardent, brave, with the riches of the world rolled to his feet—the King—of France!

Luc shivered even to imagine the glorious pride of that position. He leant on the railing, regardless of the rain that was falling, and looked up and down the street that was all he could see of Paris.

A sedan-chair came from the direction of the river, carried by two bearers in plain livery; it was—though Luc did not recognize it as such—a hired chair. It stopped at the house nearly opposite Luc. A gentleman put his head out and said something in a low voice; the chair moved a few doors higher up. Meanwhile from the opposite end of the street came two other men carrying, not a sedan-chair, but a large black coffin, on the lid of which was a shield-shaped plate that threw off the hesitating rays of the lamplight.

Luc watched with interest; his mood was too exalted to feel any horror at the sudden appearance of this sombre object. These little pictures shown him by the great city attracted him strangely. The sedan-chair had stopped; a tall gentleman had alighted and paid the bearers, who turned back the way they had come. None of them noticed what was being borne, shoulder high, towards them.

The sedan passed round a turn of the street out of sight, the late occupant hesitated a second, then came back to the house exactly opposite Luc, who stood only a few feet above him, and could observe him perfectly in the strong beams of the powerful lamp which at this point was swung across the street by a rope from house to house.

The gentleman was unusually tall and of an unusual grace and perfect balance in his walk. He was wrapped in the close, elegant folds of a fine fawn cloth cloak, and wore a black hat pulled well over his eyes. He approached the door and, putting out a hand gloved in white doeskin, knocked four times in succession.

At this moment the coffin-bearers, with a slow, steady, silent step, had reached the point where he stood, and he, all unconscious, stepped backwards and looked up at the windows of the house where he sought admission (which were all in darkness), and in so doing ran against the foremost man and the foot of the coffin. The street was narrow indeed at this place, and the men, in endeavouring to avoid a collision, made a misstep and thrust the gentleman against the wall with the side of the coffin.

He gave a cry that Luc heard distinctly—a terrible sound of terror, amaze, and despair—and threw up his hands, dropping the cane he carried. The coffin-bearers recovered their balance and passed on muttering, but the gentleman remained crouching against the wall, staring after them, with no effort to move. His terror was so evident and so incomprehensible that Luc held his breath to watch. The stranger’s hat had fallen off, and his full powdered curls were uncovered. Luc could see his breast heaving and his hands clutching at the wet wall behind him. Presently he raised his face and flung back his head, as if he were faint or gasping for breath. The garish lamplight fell full on his countenance, which gave Luc a genuine start of surprise. It was the most perfectly beautiful, the most attractive face he had ever seen in man or woman, in painting or sculpture, or, indeed, ever imagined. M. de Richelieu’s charm was as nothing compared to the grandeur of this face, which seemed to hold the flower and perfection of human loveliness even now, when the eyes were closed and the colouring hidden by the ill-light.

The expression of the man was as remarkable as his beauty. Luc had never seen such anguish, such fear, such utter terror on any countenance of all the dying and dead he had ever looked on in the war; it was a haunted look—the look a poet might conceive for a damned soul.

After a full moment the man pulled himself together with a long shudder and knocked again desperately. This time the door was opened almost instantly, and he staggered into the house, leaving his cane and hat on the cobbles.

A second after the door was opened again and a servant stepped out, picked up the beaver and cane, retired, and softly closed the door.

The curious little incident seemed over. Luc stepped back into his room, now in total darkness, and was about to call for candles when the window directly opposite suddenly flashed full of crystal light.

From where Luc stood he had a complete picture of the interior of this room where the light had appeared; it was a very luxurious apartment, and gleamed the colour of an opal across the dusky street. But Luc’s attention was arrested, not by the room, but by the two people within it: one was the gentleman who had just entered the house, the other a woman of exquisite fairness wearing a gown of white lace and grey silk. When Luc first looked across she was holding the man by the shoulders and gazing anxiously into his face; with a languid movement of loathing and fear he put her hands down. An overblown white rose fell from his cravat and scattered its petals on the polished floor between them. The lady made a movement of considerable alarm and distress, and the gentleman, who seemed never to look at her, cast himself along a gilt couch, and Luc had another glimpse of his perfect face, with the expression of almost unendurable fear and gloom, as he raised it for a moment before hiding it in the satin cushions.

The lady, who was herself of great beauty, seemed both angry and frightened. She retreated from the couch, then, with an obvious start, saw the uncovered window, came across the room and impatiently lowered the heavy velvet curtain, which, falling into place, completely shut the rest of the little scene from Luc’s gaze.