fold over and enclose the quiet green valley; the stream winds
and turns, the long poplar-bordered road follows its course;
amongst the hills are more valleys, more streams, woods,
forests, sheltered nooks, tall grey limestone rocks, spaces of
cornfields, and bright meadows. Everyone admires the charming
scenery as the train speeds across it, through one tunnel
after another; but there are few amongst our countrymen who
care to give it more than a passing glance of admiration, or
to tarry in the quiet little village even for an hour, in
their great annual rush to Spa, or the Rhine, or Switzerland.
As a rule one seldom meets Englishmen at Chaudfontaine, and it
was quite by chance that Horace Graham found himself there. An
accident to a goods train had caused a detention of several
hours all along the line, as he was travelling to Brussels,
and it was by the advice of a Belgian fellow-passenger that he
had stopped at Chaudfontaine, instead of going on to Liége, as
he had at first proposed doing, on hearing from the guard that
it was the furthest point that could be reached that night.

Behind the hotel lies a sunshiny shady garden, with benches
and tables set under the trees near the house, and beyond, an
unkempt lawn, a sort of wilderness of grass and shrubs and
trees, with clumps of dark and light foliage against the more
uniform green of the surrounding hills, and it was still cool
and pleasant when Graham wandered into it after breakfast on
that Sunday morning, whilst all in front of the hotel was
already basking in the hot sunshine. He had gone to bed the
night before with the fixed intention of leaving by the
earliest morning train, for his first impressions of
Chaudfontaine had not been cheerful ones. It was nearly