Mankind will insist.'

'On Paris?'

'On Paris.'

'Monsieur, you might as well hope to go down the Maelstrom and

resume business there.'

'I am content, Monsieur, with my ownfaith.'

'The winter comes on. Would not Monsieur bewiser to seek a

house?'

'Farther from Paris? No, Monsieur. But it is not possible,

Monsieur, what you say, and you are under a tremendous

mistake… Indeed you are in error… I asked merely for

information…'

'When last Isaw him,' said Barnet, 'he was standing under the

signpost at the crest of the hill, gazing wistfully, yet it

seemed to me a littledoubtfully, now towards Paris, and

altogether heedless of a drizzling rain that was wetting him

through and through…'

Section 5

Thiseffect of chill dismay, of a doom as yet imperfectly

apprehended deepens as Barnet's record passes on to tell of the

approach of winter. It was too much for the great mass of those

unwilling and incompetent nomads to realise that an age had

ended, that the oldhelp and guidanceexisted no longer, that

times would not mend again, howeverpatiently they held out. They

were still in many cases looking to Paris when the first

snowflakes of that pitiless January came swirling about them. The

storygrows grimmer…

If it is less monstrously tragic after Barnet's return to

England, it is, if anything, harder. England was a spectacle of

fear-embittered householders, hiding food, crushing out robbery,

driving the starving wanderers from every faltering place upon

the roads lest they should die inconveniently and reproachfully

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