when the long hot summer had set in it was his habit to walk up and down the stretch of high road which borders the sea there pausing sometimes to look across the blue waves towards france or up at dame d rising dark on its hill top against the fiery sunset his tall thin figure his hollow cheeks his drooping grey moustache his coat with its scrap of red ribbon in the button hole and something in his manner of carrying his head and his cane which can only be described as a sort of � all these things were apt to arrest the attention of the stranger if such a person looked hard at him he would return the gaze half timidly half and would probably end by raising his old but carefully brushed hat and saying bon in a high voice he was willing upon slight en the of saint i i to enter into conversation and would upon the beauty of the weather and the charm of the surrounding scenery and similar commonplace topics with a good deal of courteous an country � a divine climate figure to yourself that i came here twenty years ago and that i have not yet been able to tear myself away what would you have � when one becomes old one to value tranquillity above all things but if by any chance his grew inquisitive asked where he lived produced a card case or showed other signs of wishing to keep up the acquaintance thus begun he would take alarm his would cease he would draw his heels together lift his hat again and he would say with a low bow j ai de le bon with which he would retire hurriedly it was not that he had any desire to conceal either his name or his place of abode m was well known to all the inhabitants of saint and any one of the dirty children playing on the beach or of the black women lounging in the or of the men playing in their shirt sleeves before the s could have shown you his house � a white villa with all its closed standing in a neglected garden and shut in by rusty iron gates upon the side posts of which the inscription l in thin black letters was barely that amount of information m would have to nobody the of saint but he dreaded the society of his fellow creatures as much as he loved it because he had once been hospitable and could be hospitable no longer time has moved so fast during the last and changes have been so many that probably only a very few people recollect m as he used to be in the days of his prosperity � those good old days before the war when an imperial official could afford himself a pretty villa in the as well as his house in the town and could even go so far as to invest his cash in a farm far away on the plain which everybody said was sure to pay in that happy republican era saint was as lovely a retreat as any official could wish for and the guests at the merry breakfast parties which used to take place at the several times a week were wont to swear as they looked out upon the roses in the garden and upon the sea glittering through a belt of palms and that m was the dog in africa he did not contradict them his opinion indeed quite with theirs he had a sufficient income congenial employment a charm ing daughter and if anything had been lacking to complete his happiness the want was supplied when after somewhat he was able to announce s to that aristocratic personage the de perhaps he a little too much over this latter piece of good fortune perhaps m de s name was rather too frequently upon his lips and perhaps his the of saint friends sometimes laughed at him in their sleeves if so he was unconscious alike of ridicule and of having given cause for it for there never lived a more innocent or creature but all this is ancient history there are no more breakfast parties at saint now and such of the as have not been pulled down are inhabited by nobody knows whom saint itself is lovely no longer the hand of modem has fallen heavily upon it pouring forth cars and on to its highway its beach with and rubbish and making its shores hideous with mean where that strange and being the french dwells cheerfully in an atmosphere of dust and possibly this sad did not affect m as much as it might have done his own been less complete he fell with the fall of the empire and on losing his appointment discovered as many others have discovered under similar circumstances that he had been somewhat in making no provision for a rainy day when france was lying under the heel of the and every able man was for active service m went off to fight for his country with the rest he committed his daughter to the care of a lady friend of his for his friends were still numerous then and departed with his usual cheerfulness but he came back a good deal aged and broken only to find that his farm had been during the the of saint ne and that his had leaving neither money nor address behind him this was a rather serious calamity for the old gentleman had calculated that the sale of the farm and stock would help him out considerably with the dot of whose marriage was now about to be it was not in the least likely that m de and his family would consent to any of the large sum agreed upon and a at the hour if it had not broken s heart would assuredly have 