“I will change my mind and have a cigarette, since you are so obliging.”

“Sure you won’t regret it?”

“Quite sure, thank you.”

“They’re rather strong.”

“I’m not afraid.”

He took a cigarette from my case, and smoked it daintily.  Whether it were my imagination, or whether a slight pallor did really become visible under the sun-tan on the velvet-smooth face, I am not certain:  but at all events he rose when nothing was left between his fingers save an ash clinging to a bit of gold paper, and excused himself with belated politeness.

Not long after, my bed was made up on the floor, and I slept as I fancy few kings sleep.

Strange; not then, or ever, did I dream of Helen.

* * * * *

The voice of Finois or some near relative of his roused me at dawn.  I remembered where I was, whither bound, and sleep instantly seemed irrelevant.  I scrambled up from my lonely couch, went to the open window, which was a square of grey-green light, and looked out at the mountain walls of the valley basin.

The day was not awake yet, but only half conscious that it must awake.  There was the faint thrill of mystery which comes with earliest dawn, as though it were for you alone of all the world, and no one else could find his way down its dim labyrinths.  But even as I looked, there came a movement near the house, and I saw the stalwart figure of the landlord shape itself from the shadows.  Other forms were stirring too, the stolid forms of cows, and those of two sturdy little ponies, which were being turned into a pasture.

It occurred to me that I could not do better than get through my toilet, and, if Joseph and Finois were of the same mind, make an early start.  I thought that if I could reach the Hospice before all the gold of sunrise had boiled over night’s brim, I should have a picture to frame in memory.

At bedtime they had given me a wooden tub such as laundresses use, and filled it for my morning bath.  I had my own soap, and a great, clean, coarse dish-towel of crash or some such material.  Never before was there a bath like it, with the good smell of pinewood of which the tub was made, and the tingle of the water from a mountain spring.  I revelled in it, and as I dressed could have sung for pure joy of life, until I remembered that I was a jilted man, and this tour a voyage of consolation.

“You are miserable, you know.”  I informed my reflection in a small, strange-coloured glass, which allowed me to shave my face in greenish sections.  “It is a kind of madness, this spurious gaiety of yours.”

In half an hour I was out of the house, and found Joseph feeding Finois.  They were both prepared to leave at ten minutes’ notice, and when the two human creatures of the party had been refreshed with crusty bread and steaming coffee, the procession of three set forth.  As for the boy, the donkeys and their guardian, as far as I knew they were still sleeping the sleep of the unjust.