Two months later, on a brilliant morning of May, Hilliard again awoke from troubled dreams, but the sounds about him had no association with bygone miseries.

From the courtyard upon which his window looked there came a ringing of gay laughter followed by shrill, merry gossip in a foreign tongue.

Somewhere in the neighbourhood a church bell was pealing.

Presently footsteps hurried along the corridor, and an impatient voice shouted repeatedly, "Alphonse! Alphonse!" He was in Paris; had been there for six weeks, and now awoke with a sense of loneliness, a desire to be back among his own people.
In London he had spent only a fortnight.

It was not a time that he cared to reflect upon.