"Hephzy," said I, "I have changed my mind. Travel may do me good. I have telegraphed the Heptons that we will join them in Paris on the evening of the twenty-first. After that--Well, we'll see."

Hephzy's delight was as great as her surprise. She said I was a dear, unselfish boy. Considering what I intended doing I felt decidedly mean; but I did not tell her what that intention was.

We took the two-twenty train from Charing Cross on the afternoon of the twenty-first. The servants had been left in charge of the rectory. We would return in a fortnight, so we told them.

It was a beautiful day, bright and sunshiny, but, after smoky, grimy London had been left behind and we were whizzing through the Kentish countryside, between the hop fields and the pastures where the sheep were feeding, we noticed that a stiff breeze was blowing. Further on, as we wound amid the downs near Folkestone, the bending trees and shrubs proved that the breeze was a miniature gale. And when we came in sight of the Channel, it was thickly sprinkled with whitecaps from beach to horizon.

"I imagine we shall have a rather rough passage, Hephzy," said I.

Hephzy's attention was otherwise engaged.

"Why do they call a hill a 'down' over here?" she asked. "I should think an 'up' would be better. What did you say, Hosy? A rough passage? I guess that won't bother you and me much. This little mite of water can't seem very much stirred up to folks who have sailed clear across the Atlantic Ocean. But there! I mustn't put on airs. I used to think Cape Cod Bay was about all the water there was. Travelin' does make such a difference in a person's ideas. Do you remember the Englishwoman at Bancroft's who told me that she supposed the Thames must remind us of our own Mississippi?"

"So that's the famous English Channel, is it," she observed, a moment later. "How wide is it, Hosy?"

"About twenty miles at the narrowest point, I believe," I said.

"Twenty miles! About as far as Bayport to Provincetown. Well, I don't know whether any of your ancestors or mine came over with William the Conquerer or not, but if they did, they didn't have far to come. I cal'late I'll be contented with having my folks cross in the Mayflower.

They came three thousand miles anyway."

She was inclined to regard the Channel rather contemptuously just then.

A half hour later she was more respectful.

The steamer was awaiting us at the pier. As the throng of passengers filed up the gang-plank she suddenly squeezed my arm.

"Look! Hosy!" she cried. "Look! Isn't that him?"

I looked where she was pointing.

"Him? Who?" I asked.

"Look! There he goes now. No, he's gone. I can't see him any more. And yet I was almost certain 'twas him."

"Who?" I asked again. "Did you see someone you knew?"

"I thought I did, but I guess I was mistaken. He's just got home; he wouldn't be startin' off again so soon. No, it couldn't have been him, but I did think--"

I stopped short. "Who did you think you saw?" I demanded.

"I thought I saw Doctor Herbert Bayliss goin' up those stairs to the steamboat. It looked like him enough to be his twin brother, if he had one."

I did not answer. I looked about as we stepped aboard the boat, but if young Bayliss was there he was not in sight. Hephzy rattled on excitedly.

"You can't tell much by seein' folks's backs," she declared. "I remember one time your cousin Hezekiah Knowles--You don't remember him, Hosy; he died when you was little--One time Cousin Hezzy was up to Boston with his wife and they was shoppin' in one of the big stores. That is, Martha Ann--the wife--was shoppin' and he was taggin' along and complainin', same as men generally do. He was kind of nearsighted, Hezzy was, and when Martha was fightin' to get a place in front of a bargain counter he stayed astern and kept his eyes fixed on a hat she was wearin'. 'Twas a new hat with blue and yellow flowers on it. Hezzy always said, when he told the yarn afterward, that he never once figured that there could be another hat like that one. I saw it myself and, if I'd been in his place, I'd have HOPED there wasn't anyway. Well, he followed that hat from one counter to another and, at last, he stepped up and said, 'Look here, dearie,' he says--They hadn't been married very long, not long enough to get out of the mushy stage--'Look here, dearie,' he says, 'hadn't we better be gettin' on home? You'll tire those little feet of yours all out trottin' around this way.' And when the hat turned around there was a face under it as black as a crow. He'd been followin' a darkey woman for ten minutes. She thought he was makin' fun of her feet and was awful mad, and when Martha came along and found who he'd taken for her she was madder still. Hezzy said, 'I couldn't help it, Martha.

Nobody could. I never saw two craft look more alike from twenty foot astern. And she wears that hat just the way you do.' That didn't help matters any, of course, and--Why, Hosy, where are you goin'? Why don't you say somethin'? Hadn't we better sit down? All the good seats will be gone if we don't."

I had been struggling through the crowd, trying my best to get a glimpse of the man she had thought to be Herbert Bayliss. If it was he then my suspicions were confirmed. Heathcroft's story of the girl who sang in Paris had impressed him as it had me and he was on his way to see for himself. But the man, whoever he might be, had disappeared.

"How the wind does blow," said Hephzy. "What are the people doin' with those black tarpaulins?"

Sailors in uniform were passing among the seated passengers distributing large squares of black waterproof canvas. I watched the use to which the tarpaulins were put and I understood. I beckoned to the nearest sailor and rented two of the canvases for use during the voyage.

"How much?" I asked.

"One franc each," said the man, curtly.

I had visited the money-changers near the Charing Cross station and was prepared. Hephzy's eyes opened.

"A franc," she repeated. "That's French money, isn't it. Is he a Frenchman?"

"Yes," said I. "This is a French boat, I think."

She watched the sailor for a moment. Then she sighed.

"And he's a Frenchman," she said. "I thought Frenchmen wore mustaches and goatees and were awful polite. He was about as polite as a pig.

And all he needs is a hand-organ and a monkey to be an Italian. A body couldn't tell the difference without specs. What did you get those tarpaulins for, Hosy?"

I covered our traveling bags with one of the tarpaulins, as I saw our fellow-passengers doing, and the other I tucked about Hephzy, enveloping her from her waist down.

"I don't need that," she protested. "It isn't cold and it isn't rainin', either. I tell you I don't need it, Hosy. Don't tuck me in any more. I feel as if I was goin' to France in a baby carriage, not a steamboat.

And what are they passin' round those--those tin dippers for?"

"They may be useful later on," I said, watching the seas leap and foam against the stone breakwater. "You'll probably understand later, Hephzy."

She understood. The breakwater was scarcely passed when our boat, which had seemed so large and steady and substantial, began to manifest a desire to stand on both ends at once and to roll like a log in a rapid.

The sun was shining brightly overhead, the verandas of the hotels along the beach were crowded with gaily dressed people, the surf fringing that beach was dotted with bathers, everything on shore wore a look of holiday and joy--and yet out here, on the edge of the Channel, there was anything but calm and anything but joy.

How that blessed boat did toss and rock and dip and leap and pitch! And how the spray began to fly as we pushed farther and farther from land!

It came over the bows in sheets; it swept before the wind in showers, in torrents. Hephzy hastily removed her hat and thrust it beneath the tarpaulin. I turned up the collar of my steamer coat and slid as far down into that collar as I could.

"My soul!" exclaimed Hephzy, the salt water running down her face. "My soul and body!"

"I agree with you," said I.

On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally, according to their dispositions--or digestions. A huge wave--the upper third of it, at least--swept across the deck and spilled a gallon or two of cold water upon us. A sturdy, red-faced Englishman, sitting next me, grinned cheerfully and observed:

"Trickles down one's neck a bit, doesn't it, sir."

I agreed that it did. Hephzy, huddled under the lee of my shoulder, sputtered.

"Trickles!" she whispered. "My heavens and earth! If this is a trickle then Noah's flood couldn't have been more than a splash. Trickles!

There's a Niagara Falls back of both of my ears this minute."

Another passenger, also English, but gray-haired and elderly, came tacking down the deck, bound somewhere or other. His was a zig-zag transit. He dove for the rail, caught it, steadied himself, took a fresh start, swooped to the row of chairs by the deck house, carromed from them, and, in company with a barrel or two of flying brine, came head first into my lap. I expected profanity and temper. I did get a little of the former.

"This damned French boat!" he observed, rising with difficulty. "She absolutely WON'T be still."

"The sea is pretty rough."