might have read, loved him with all her soul.  We all pride ourselves on our skill in reading the characters of our fellow-creatures.  A man will admit any dulness except that which closes the hearts of others to him.  I was convinced that I had read the character of Daker before we touched the quay at Boulogne:  he was a man of fine and delicate nature, whom the world had hit; who had been cheery under punishment; and who had at length got his rich reward in Mrs. Daker.  I repeat this confession, and to my cost; for it is necessary as part explanation of what follows.

My conversation with Daker was broken by the call of a sweet voice—­“Herbert!” We were crossing the bar at the entrance of Boulogne harbour.  The good ship rolled heavily, and Herbert was wanted!  When the passengers crowded to the side, pressing and jostling to effect an early landing, and the fishwives were scrambling from the paddles to the deck, I came upon Daker and his wife once more.  She glanced shyly and not very good-humouredly at me, and seemed to say, “It was you who diverted the attention of my Herbert from me so long.”

“Good morning,” Daker said, meaning that there was an end of our fortuitous intercourse, and that he should be just as chatty and familiar with any man who might happen to be in the same carriage with him between Boulogne and Paris.  I watched him hand his wife into a basket phaeton, smooth her dress, arrange her little parcels, satisfy her as to her dressing-case, and then seat himself triumphantly at her side, and call gaily to the saturnine Boulounais upon the box, “Allez!” I confess that a pang of jealousy shot through me.  It has been observed by La Rochefoucauld that it is astonishing how cheerfully we bear the ills of others; he might well have added that, on the other hand, it is remarkable how we fret over the happiness of our neighbours.  I envied Daker when I saw him drive away to the station with the gentle girl at his side; I knew that she was nestling against him, and half her illness was only an excuse to get nearer to his heart.  Why should I envy him?  Could I have seen through his face into his heart at that moment I should have thanked God, who made me of simpler mould—­a lonely, but an honourable man.

We were on our way to Paris in due time.  At Amiens, where we enjoyed the usual twenty minutes’ rest, Daker offered me a light.  I saw him making his way to the carriage in which his wife sat, with a basket of pears and some caramels.  The bell rang, and we all hurried to our seats.  I remarked that, at the point of starting, there was an unusual stir and noise on the platform. Messieurs les voyageurs were not complete; somebody was missing from one of the carriages.  The station-master and the guard kept up a brisk and angry conversation, which ended in an imperious wave of the hand to the engine-driver.