"Shall we ever see you again, I wonder?" asked his landlady, when
the moment arrived for leave-taking.

"If I am ever again in Dudley, I shall come here," he answered
kindly.

But on his way to the station he felt a joyful assurance that fate
would have no power to draw him back again into this circle of fiery
torments.



CHAPTER V


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. No sooner had he found himself in the
metropolis, alone and free, with a pocketful of money, than a