"Has he left no message for me?"

"I will see, sir. Please take a seat."

Presently the clerk returned. "I am sorry, sir, but there doesn't seem
to be any message left for you."

"Tell him I called," said Rivière, and went back to his cab. In it he
was driven to the Gare de Lyon. At the booking-office he asked for a
ticket for Arles. His intention was to travel amongst the old cities of
Provence, and then make his way to the Pyrenees and into Spain. There
was no definite plan of journey; he wanted only some atmosphere which
would help him to clear his mind for the work to come. In the Midi the
early Spring would be breathing new life over the earth.

About midnight the southern express stopped at some big station. The
rhythmic sway and clatter of a moving train had given place to a
comparative stillness that awoke John Rivière from sleep. He murmured
"Dijon," and composed himself to a fresh position for rest. Some hours
later there was again a stoppage, and instinctively he murmured
"Lyon-Perrache." The phases of the journey along the main P.L.M. route
had been burnt into him from the visits with Olive to Monte Carlo.

In the morning the strange land of Provence opened out under mist which
presently cleared away beneath the steady drive of the sun. The low
hills that border the valley of the Rhone cantered past him--quaint,
treeless hills here scarped and sun-scorched, there covered with low
balsam shrubs. Now and again they passed a straggling white village
roofed with big, curved, sun-mellowed tiles. Around the village there
would be a few trees, and on these the early Spring of the Midi had laid