My only thought during the ride was, What shall I do when we arrive at Belgarde?  I expected to see the doors thrown open as before, and hear again the polite invitation to enter the custom-house.  Was it not certain detection to refuse? was it not equally dangerous to obey?  The officer at Belgarde had seen me the day before, and warned me not to go to Culoz.  What reception would he give me when he saw me attempting to return?  Or it might be he would not remember me, and then in the darkness and confusion I should surely be taken for an escaping Communist.  That I had passed Culoz was no comfort when I remembered that this would only aggravate my guilt in their eyes.

The case did indeed seem desperate.  Willingly would I have jumped out and walked the entire distance to Geneva, if I might only thus escape that terrible custom-house, which every moment loomed up more terrifically.  At length this troubled hour was passed:  we had arrived at Belgarde, and the moment for action had come.  I had determined to avoid the custom-house at all hazards.  When the doors were thrown open I expected to alight, but not to enter.  My plan was to find some sheltering door, or even corner, where I could remain until the others had presented their passports and were beginning to return, then join them and take my seat as before.  The depot at Belgarde was brilliantly lighted, and the gendarmes pacing to and fro in the gaslight seemed not only to have increased in numbers, but to have acquired an additional ferocity since the day previous.

As I looked but my spirit sank within me.  I could only brace myself for the coming crisis.  For several moments nothing was said or done.  The doors remained shut, and no one seemed at all concerned about our presence.  Each minute appeared an hour as I sat there awaiting my fate.  The suspense was becoming too great:  I felt that my stock of self-possession was entirely deserting me.  At length I began to hope that they were satisfied with the examination at Culoz, and would allow us to pass unchallenged.  Just at that moment, as hope was dawning into certainty, the door opened and the custom-house officer entered with a polite bow, while a body of gendarmes drew up behind him upon the platform.  He uttered two French words, and I needed no interpreter to tell me that they were “Passports, gentlemen!”

I shuddered as I saw him standing so near, within reach of my arm.  There were six persons besides myself in the carriage, and I was occupying a seat beside the door farthest from the platform.  Any one who has seen a European railway-carriage will understand me when I say that I sat next to the right-hand door, while he had entered by the left.  One by one the passports were handed up to him until he held six in his hand.

With the rest of the passengers I had taken out my pocket-book and searched as if for my passport, but had handed none to him, and now I sat awaiting developments.  I saw that he would read the six passports, and then turn to me for the seventh.