The sea which he had just crossed lay gleaming behind him, every lovely ripple washing the shores of a new continent.

The cliffs which he saw rising white in the sunlight were the Norman cliffs. Beyond them the fields waved in the summer air and the June sky spread blue over France.

As he stepped down from the gang-plank and touched French soil, he gazed about him in delight.

The air was salt and indescribably sweet. The breeze came to him over the ripening fields and mingled with the breath of the sea.

They passed his luggage through the Customs quickly, and Antony was free to wonder and to explore. Not since he had left the oleanders and jasmines of New Orleans had he smelled such delicious odours as those of sea-girdled Havre. A few soldiers in red uniforms tramped down the streets singing the Marseillaise. A group of fish-wives offered him mussels and crabs.

In his grey travelling clothes, his soft grey hat, his bag in his hand, he went away from the port toward the wide avenue.

The bright colour of a red awning of a cafÉ caught his eye; he decided to breakfast before going on to Paris.

Paris! The word thrilled him through and through.

At a small table out of doors he ordered "boeuf À la mode" and "pommes de terre." It seemed agreeable to speak French again and his soft Creole accent charmed the ear of the waiter who bent smiling to take his order.

Antony watched with interest the scene around him; those about him seemed to be good-humoured, contented travellers on the road of life. There was a neat alacrity about the waiters in their white aprons.

A girl with a bouquet of roses came up to him. Antony gave her a sou and in exchange she gave him a white rose.

"Thank you, Monsieur the Englishman."

He had never tasted steak and potatoes like these. He had never tasted red wine like this. And it cost only a franc! He ordered his coffee and smoked and mused in the bland June light.

He was happier than he had been for many a long day.

Eventful, tremulous, terrible and expressive, his past lay behind him on another shore. He felt as though he were about to seek his fortune for the first time.

As soon as Rainsford's generous gift became his own, the possession of his little fortune, even at such a tragic price, made a new man of Fairfax. He magnified its power, but it proved sufficient to buy him a gentlemanly outfit, the ticket to France, and leave him a little capital.

His plans unfolded themselves to him now, as he sat musing before the restaurant. He would study in the schools with Cormon or Julian. He had brought with him his studies of Molly—he would have them criticized by the great masters. All Paris was before him. The wonders of the galleries, whose masterpieces were familiar to him in casts and photographs, would disclose themselves to him now. He would see the Louvre, Notre Dame de Paris....

His spirits rose as he touched the soil of France. Now Paris should be his mistress, and art should be his passion!

His ticket took him second-class on a slow train and he found a seat amongst the humble travelling world; between a priest and a soldier, he smoked his cigarettes and offered them to his companions, and watched the river flowing between the poplars, the fields red with poppies, yellow with wheat. The summer light shining on all shone on him through the small window of the carriage, and though it was sunset it seemed to Fairfax sunrise. The hour grew late. The darkness fell and the motion of the cars made him drowsy, and he fell asleep.

He was awakened by the stirring of his fellow-passengers, by the rich Norman voices, by the jostling and moving among the occupants of the carriage, and he gathered his thoughts together, took his valise in his hand and climbed down from the car.

He passed out with the crowd through the St. Lazare station. He had in Havre observed with interest the novel constructions of the engines and the rolling stock. The crowd of market-women, peasants, curÉs, was anonymous to him, but as he passed the engine which had brought him from Havre, he glanced up at the mechanician, a big, blond-moustached fellow in a blue blouse. The engineer's face streamed with perspiration and he was smoking a cigarette.

He had shunned engines and yards, and everything that had to do with his old existence, for months; now he nodded with a friendly sympathetic smile to the engine-driver.

"Bien le bonjour," he said cheerfully, as he had heard the people in the train say it, "Bien le bonjour."

The Frenchman nodded and grinned and watched him limp down and out with the others to the waiting-room called, picturesquely, the Hall of the Lost Footsteps—"La Salle des Pas Perdus."

And Antony's light step and his heavy step fell among the countless millions that come and go, go and come, unmarked, forgotten—to walk with the Paris multitudes into paths of obscurity or fame—"les pas perdus."