The guard and the commissioner (who travels in the interest of the general vagrant public from London to Paris, making himself generally useful by the way) shrugged their shoulders and got to their places, and we went forward to Creil.  Here the carriages were all searched carefully.  A lady was inquiring for the gentleman.  My French companions laughed, and answered in their native light manner; and again we were en route for Paris.  Past Chantilly and Enghien and St. Denis we flew, to where the low line of the fortifications warned us to dust ourselves, fold our newspapers, roll up our rugs, and tell one another that which was obvious to all—­that we were in the centre of civilization once more.

It was dark; and I was hungry, and out of humour, and impatient.  I had fallen in with unsympathetic companions.  That half-hour in the waiting-room, while the porters are arranging the luggage for examination, is trying to most tempers.  I am usually free from it; but on this occasion I had some luggage belonging to a friend to look after.  I was waiting sulkily.

Presently the guard, the travelling commissioner, and half-a-dozen more in official costume, appeared, surrounding a lady, who was in deep distress.  Had I seen a gentleman—­fair, &c., &c.?  I turned and beheld Mrs. Daker.  She darted at me, and I can never forget the look which accompanied the question—­

“You were with my husband on the boat.  Where is he?”

He was not among the passengers who reached Paris.  We telegraphed back to Creil, and to Amiens.  No English traveller, who had missed his train, made answer.  We questioned all the passengers in the waiting-room; one had seen the blonde Englishman buying pears at Amiens; this was all we could hear.  I say “we,” because Mrs.

[Illustration:  EXCURSIONISTS & EMIGRANTS. Sketches in Paris]

Daker at once fastened upon me:  she implored my advice; she narrated all that had passed between her husband and herself while the train was waiting at Amiens.  He had begged her not to stir—­kind fellow that he was—­he had insisted upon fetching fruit and sweetmeats for her.  I calmed her fears, for they were exaggerated beyond all reason.  He would follow in the next train; I knew what Frenchmen were, and they would not remark a single traveller, unless he had some strong peculiarity in his appearance, and her husband had a travelled air which was cosmopolitan.  He spoke French like a Frenchman, she told me; and he had proved, on the boat, that he was familiar with its idioms.  I begged her to get her luggage, go to her hotel, and leave me to watch and search.  What hotel were they to use?  She knew nothing about it.  Her husband hadn’t told her, for she was an utter stranger to Paris.  I recommended the Windsor (I thought it prudent not to say Mrs. Rowe’s); and she was a child in my hands.  She looked even prettier in her distress than when her happy eyes were beaming, as I first caught sight of them, upon Herbert Daker.  The tears trickled down her cheek; the little white hands shook like flower bells in the wind.  While the luggage was being searched (fortunately she had the ticket in her reticule), I stood by and helped her.