Luc sat in a corner of the Paris post-chaise which was driving through the dark away from Aix. It was over now. He was free of everything; his own master; on his own road to his own goal.

Though, knowing his father, he must have known this utter breach would follow his confession of his faith and belief, yet no previous preparation could soften the pang of the suddenness with which the thing had happened. For years he had been aware that if he spoke what was in his mind his father would be moved to terrible wrath; yet it was none the less awful that he was riding away from Aix, from his home, for ever.

His mother, too. She had let him go with less kindness than he had often seen her show to poor beseechers of charity at her gate.

Jean, his own body-servant, had shrunk from him—he had packed his portmanteaus himself; the other servants had kept out of his way. He seemed to have left the house under a silent curse.

He roused himself; demanded of himself what he was doing brooding on the past. His justification lay in the future. He looked round the interior of the coach, which was full of mist, and shadow, and the wavering light of an oil lamp that hung above the red upholstered worn back of the seat opposite him.

It was a chilly night, the road rough, and progress slow. Luc’s weak sight slowly made out the other passengers. His mental preoccupation had been such that till now he had not noticed them.

One, who sat opposite him, under the lamp, was an ordinary middle-aged citizen, wrapped in a frieze coat and wearing a grey wig. He was half asleep, and his head shook to and fro on his breast with the rattling of the coach. The remaining passenger was a woman, so muffled from head to foot in a dark mantle that face, figure, hands, and feet were hidden—probably she was asleep.

Luc had never been in a public coach before. The close smell, the worn fittings, the near presence of strangers—it was all new to him, as were the joltings and lurching in the heavy leathers. He reflected that henceforth all his life would be as strange, as different as this from what he had hitherto known; that from now on he would have to consider things from another standpoint—the soldier, the noble existed no longer. He was a man broken in health, with very little longer to live, adventuring to Paris. He schooled himself to endure the monotony of the cold, the dim light, the two silent figures, the slow motion. He closed his eyes and endeavoured to sleep.

His senses were slipping into a languid, bitter-sweet confusion, when a stinging blast of air roused him. He sat up, shivering and coughing.

The window farthest from him had been opened, and a thin curl of mist, icy cold, entered the coach. The man opposite slept and nodded, and the lady by the open window held her head turned away, and seemed to be gazing out at the darkness.

Luc’s courtesy would not permit him to ask her to close the window, though to have it wide to the night in such weather seemed folly.

The cold crept up to him, and clung to him. Recollections of all that cold had meant in his life came to him: the cold in Bohemia; the cold outside Aix; even the delicate chill of evening in the garden off the Rue Deauville. And all these associations were with Carola Koklinska, and he recalled that she had told him how she used to lie shivering under the trees when she was a child—cold, cold, cold.

Wherever her soul might be, her body was cold now, stiff in the frosty earth. He too, he shivered as he had not under the snows of PÜrgitz. Again he closed his eyes, yet soon opened them.

Now the window was shut.

He stared, for he had not heard the sound of closing. When he reflected, he had not heard the sound of opening either, nor had the lady changed her attitude—and it was not possible that she could have pulled the thick strap, moved down or up the ponderous frame of wood, the heavy sheet of glass, without some sound, and without disturbing the folds of the cloak across her hands.

Luc admitted to himself, with a little quiver, that his sight was more and more failing him. In these last few weeks he could not trust himself about objects even so near as was this window, that could never have been opened.

He wondered where the cold came from, for it was increasing till every bone ached. Yet his fellow-travellers were quiet. Could it be his fancy conjuring up the past, the snow, the chill—and Carola, ClÉmence that was? His head sank sideways on his breast, and he fixed his blurred vision on the silent figure of the woman in the corner. Since he could not see her face, he might please himself by imagining it; since he was free to picture her as he would, he might believe she had black hair in long fine ringlets, dark eyes and hollowed cheeks, and a fair throat softly shadowed.

The coach rattled on with cumbrous pace. The lantern flame flared and dipped in the socket; the man in the frieze coat sank huddled together in a deeper sleep; and the cold became more intense, more searching, till Luc felt as if some creature of ice were embracing him.

Presently, and for the first time, the lady in the corner moved. She did not turn her head from gazing at the darkness, but she drew her hand from under her cloak (that Luc now perceived to be of purple velvet) and laid it on the seat between them.

It was a bare hand, white, and thin, and long.

Luc stared down at this hand, leant forward to bridge the space between them. On the second of the fingers was a diamond ring with sapphire points. Luc had seen a child with such a ring in her shroud buried in the convent graveyard. He drooped against the back of the seat; the hand came nearer, and it seemed to him that his sight suddenly became as perfect as it once had been, for he saw every line and curve and shadow, every tint and crease in the delicate hand creeping closer to him across the worn red velvet of the seat; saw the blue and white sparkle of the stones in the lamplight, and the minute details of their carved silver setting.

She still did not look round. Luc put out his own hand, and the long fingers rested on his. The deep cold increased till he felt that every drop of blood in his body was chilled.

The coach jolted, the lamp shook violently, and the flame sank out; darkness joined the cold. The coach vanished from about Luc; he felt himself being drawn by that icy hand through soft blackness. Cloudy pictures of all he had lost oppressed him: he heard his father’s voice, very far off; his mother’s last cruel dismissal, coming too from a great distance. He thought he was under the earth, lying in a grave with Carola Koklinska. His own hand was now so cold that he did not know whether or no another was resting in it. A faint Eastern perfume, luxurious and warm, pervaded the universal cold; a sense of comfort, of delight, stayed the long ache of regret in Luc’s heart, as if herbs had been placed on a wound.

He thought he was back in Bohemia, sleeping on the frozen ground, and that presently the dawn would break like a frosty lily, and he would look up to see a lady in a habit of Oriental gaudiness ride round a tall silver fir, in the topmost boughs of which the sun would sparkle among the snow crystals.

But it was another light that broke across the peaceful, grateful darkness that surrounded Luc. He sat up shivering, to find himself in the close, worn interior of a public coach, the door of which was being held open by the guard, who carried a lantern that cast a strong yellow glow.

The coach had stopped. Luc’s fellow-passenger was yawning and shaking himself.

“Ah, Messieurs,” the guard was saying, “a thousand pardons—the light has gone out!”

“Eh?” yawned the man in the frieze coat. “Well, I think we have both been asleep, have we not, Monsieur?”

He smiled courteously at Luc.

“It would seem so,” shuddered the Marquis. Beyond the stout figure of the guard, clumsy with heavy capes, he could see the misty lights of an inn, and a group of men standing in front of the yellow square of the door.

“The lady?” he asked. “Has the lady got out here?”

The fellow shook his head.

“There was no passenger save you two from Aix, Monsieur. Some others join us at the next stage.”

Luc glanced at his fellow-traveller, who was chafing his hands vigorously.

“Did you not think that there was a lady in that corner?” he asked faintly.

When he saw the look turned on him, he repented having spoken.

“You have been dreaming, Monsieur,” was the brusque answer. “We have been alone in the coach since Aix.”

Luc controlled himself.

“Forgive me,” he said simply. “My sight is not very good, and there were so many shadows I thought I saw a lady in a dark mantle seated in that corner.”

The little man laughed.

“Mon Dieu, no, Monsieur.” He spoke pleasantly, being affected, almost unconsciously, by the sweetness and gentleness of the slight stooping gentleman who was so terribly marked by the smallpox and seemed to breathe with such an effort.

The guard entered to relight the lantern, and the two travellers descended and stood in the strip of light outside the inn, where the coachman, some peasants, and two starved-looking people, who had been travelling outside, were drinking hot spiced wine with wolfish relish.

Luc felt the night wind touch his face. He walked out of the radius of light, away from the sound of the talk, and stood facing the dark high road.

Can she, then, come back—has she, then, remembered? Did she mean to comfort me?

He breathed strongly and drew himself erect.

Why should I fear sorrow and loss? Who am I that I should hope to be free of grief and regret? I have not offended the Being who put me here, and I fear nothing.

He stood motionless, for the wind was rising higher, and passed him with a sound like the sweep of a woman’s skirt. He thought to feel a touch, a breath, to hear a voice, a sigh.

But the wind passed, and a great stillness fell.

Luc returned to the coach.

“Will you not have a glass of wine, Monsieur?” asked the man in the frieze coat. “It is a bitter night for spring.”

The Marquis declined pleasantly.

“I suppose we are near the dawn?” he added.

“I think it will be light before the next stage, Monsieur.”

They mounted the step, entered, and closed the door. A heavy smell of oil hung in the air, and the lamp burnt raggedly. From without came the clink of glasses and money, voices, and the stamp of feet.

Luc was roused from the exaltation of his inner thoughts by the question—

“How far are you travelling, Monsieur?”

“To Paris.”

“Ah, a long way.”

“Yes, a long way.”

“A fine city, Paris,” said the other, pulling on his gloves.

“Fine, indeed, Monsieur.”

They took their seats, and the coach started with a noisy effort. The elder traveller was soon asleep again, but Luc sat awake, alert, watching the blurred misty glass turn a cold white as the dawn came slowly.