He had, in fact, rung the bell at the frowning portal in the rue de l’Universite with some trepidation.  Suggestions of grandeur and mystery beyond anything he was prepared to meet lay within these seemingly fortified walls.  At the same time it gave glory to the glamour in which the image of Olivia Guion always appeared to him to think she had passed and repassed these solemn gates at will, and that the stately Louis Quinze hotel, of which the concierge allowed him a glimpse across the courtyard, had, on and off, been her home for years.  It was one more detail that removed her beyond his sphere and made her inaccessible to his yearnings.

From the obliging post-office clerk at the bank on which he drew—­a gentleman posted in the movements of all distinguished Americans on the continent of Europe—­he learned that “la campagne” for the Marquise de Melcourt meant the chateau of Melcourt-le-Danois in the neighborhood of Harfleur.  He was informed, moreover, that by taking the two-o’clock train to Havre he could sleep that night at the Hotel Frascati, and motor out to Melcourt easily within an hour in the morning.  It began then to occur to him that what had presented itself at first as a prosaic journey from Boston to Paris and back was becoming an adventure, with a background of castles and noble dames.

Nevertheless, he took heart for the run to Havre, and except for feeling at twilight the wistfulness that comes out of the Norman landscape—­the melancholy of things forgotten but not gone, dead but still brooding wraith-like over the valley of the Seine, haunting the hoary churches, and the turreted chateaux, and the windings of the river, and the long lines of poplar, and the villages and forests and orchards and corn-fields—­except for this, his spirits were good.  If now and then he was appalled at what he, a shy fellow with no antecedents to recommend him and no persuasive powers, had undertaken, he thought of Olivia Guion.  The thing he was attempting became trivial when compared with the possible benefits to her.

That reflections too, enabled him to come victoriously out of three long hours of inward wrestling—­three long hours spent on the jetty which thrust itself into the sea just outside his hotel at Havre.  He supposed he had already fought the battle with himself and won it.  Its renewal on the part of powers within his soul took him by surprise.

He had strolled out after dinner to the Chaussee des Etats-Unis to while away the time before going to bed.  Ships and sailors, with the lights and sights and sounds of a busy port, had for him the fascination they exert over most men who lead rather sedentary lives.  At that time in the evening the Chaussee des Etats-Unis was naturally gay with the landsman’s welcome to the sailor on shore.  The cafes were crowded both inside and out.  Singing came from one and the twang of an instrument from another, all along the quay.  Soldiers mingled fraternally with