He gave the slip of typewritten message into Hillyard’s hand.

“That was most kind of you,” said Hillyard.  “You have removed a great anxiety.  It would have been many days before I should have received this good news if you had not gone out of your way to hurry with it here.”

Hillyard was moved, partly by the message, partly by the consideration of Marnier, who now waved his thanks aside.

“Bah!  We may not say ‘comrade’ as often as the Boche, but perhaps we are it all the more.  I will not come further with you towards your carriage, for I have still a few things to do.”

He shook Hillyard by the hand and departed.  Hillyard turned from him towards his sleeping-car, but though his chief anxiety was dispelled, his reluctance to go was not.  And he looked at the long, brightly-lit train which was to carry him from this busy and high-hearted city with a desire that it would start before its time, and leave him a derelict upon the platform.  He could not bend his thoughts to the work which was at his hand.  The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their sparkle and enchantment.  Here, here, was the place of life!  The exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to success—­these matters were all banished from his mind.  Even the war-risk of it was forgotten.  He thought with envy of the men in trenches.  Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the Germans; the danger of the torpedo was ever present on her voyages, and the certainty that if she were sunk, and he captured, any means would be taken to force him to speak before he was shot, was altogether beyond dispute.  Even at this moment he carried hidden in a match-box a little phial, which never left him, to put the sure impediment between himself and a forced confession of his aims and knowledge.  But he was not aware of it.  How many times had he seen the red light at Europa Point on Gibraltar’s edge change to white, sometimes against the scarlet bars of dawn, sometimes in the winter against a wall of black!  But on the platform of the Quai d’Orsay station, in a bustle of soldiers going on short leave to their homes, and rattling with pannikins and iron-helmets, he could remember none of these consolations.

He reached his carriage.

“Messieurs les voyageurs, en route!” cried the controller.

“What a crowd!” Hillyard grumbled.  “Really, it almost disposes one to say that one will never travel again until this war is over.”

He walked along the corridor to his compartment and sat down as the train started with a jerk.  The door stood open, and in a few minutes the attendant came to it.

“Who is in the next compartment on the other side of the lavatory?” Hillyard asked.

“A manufacturer of Perpignan and his wife.”

“Does he snore?” Hillyard asked.  “If he snores I shall not sleep.  It should be an offence against your bye-laws for a traveller to snore.”