necessitated passing through the depot, and passing through the depot was passing through the custom-house.  As our train stopped in front of the fatal door, and one by one the passengers filed into it and were lost to sight, I seemed to see written above the door, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” It was simply rushing into the jaws of fate:  there was not the slightest possibility of my being able to pass through that depot unchallenged.  I should be carried on to Paris if I remained in the train; I should be arrested if I remained on the platform; I was discovered if I entered the custom-house.  Eagerly I glanced around for some means of escape.  Every instant the number of passengers on the platform was decreasing, the danger of discovery rapidly increasing.

I had feared lest some benevolent French officer, anxious for my safety, would be found waiting to assist me in alighting:  I was thankful to find that I should be allowed to assist myself, and that no one paid any particular attention to me.  As I stood there hesitating what course to pursue, and feeling how much easier my mind at this moment would be were I waiting on the Belgarde platform, I noticed a door standing open a few steps to the left.  Without any further hesitation I walked directly in, to find myself in a railroad restaurant.  It proved to be a tower of refuge.

No one had noticed me.  There were other passengers in the room, waiting for the Paris train; so, joining myself to them, I remained there until the custom-house doors were closed and the guards had left the platform.  The question now arose, How should I reach the opposite platform?  The train might start at any moment:  the only legitimate passage was closed.  I knew that the attempt would be fraught with danger, yet I felt that it was now too late to draw back.  If I remained any length of time in the restaurant, I should be suspected and discovered; and as I thought of that moment a terrific scene arose before my mind in which an excited French official thundered at me in his choicest French, while I stood silent, unable to explain who I was, how I came there, whither I was going; I imagined myself being searched for treasonable documents and none being found; I seemed to see my captors consulting how they could best compel me to tell what I knew.  These scenes and others of like nature entertained me while I waited for the coast—­or rather platform—­to be cleared.  When at length all the immediate guards were gone, I started out to find my way, if possible, to the train for Aix.  I have read of travelers cutting their way through trackless forests, of ice-bound mariners anxiously seeking the North-west passage, and, worse than all, of luckless countrymen wandering bewildered through the streets of Boston; but I am confident that no traveler, mariner or countryman ever sought his way with more circumspection and diligence than I in my search for a passage between those two platforms.