pened, and Richard Turnbull showed his
new guest into the room, and ushered him to a vacant seat near the other
corner of the table before the fire.

The stranger advanced slowly and shyly, with something a little
deprecatory in his air, to which a lathy figure, a slight stoop, and a
very gentle and even heartbroken look in his pale long face, gave a more
marked character of shrinking and timidity.

He thanked the landlord aside, as it were, and took his seat with a
furtive glance round, as if he had no right to come in and intrude upon
the happiness of these honest gentlemen.

He saw the Captain scanning him from under his shaggy grey eyebrows
while he was pretending to look only at his game; and the Doctor was
able to recount to Mrs. Torvey when he went home every article of the
stranger's dress.

It was odd and melancholy as his peaked face.

He had come into the room with a short black cloak on, and a rather tall
foreign felt hat, and a pair of shiny leather gaiters or leggings on his
thin legs; and altogether presented a general resemblance to the
conventional figure of Guy Fawkes.

Not one of the company assembled knew the appearance of the Baronet. The
Doctor and old Mr. Peers remembered something of his looks; and
certainly they had no likeness, but the reverse, to those presented by
the new-comer. The Baronet, as now described by people who had chanced
to see him, was a dark man, not above the middle size, and with a
certain decision in his air and talk; whereas this person was tall,
pale, and in air and manner feeble. So this broken trader in the world's
commerce, with whom all seemed to have gone wrong, could not possibly be
he.

Presently, in one of his stealthy glances, the Doctor's eye encountered
that of the stranger, who was by this time drinking his tea--a thin and
feminine liquor little used in that room.

The stranger did not seem put out; and the Doctor, interpreting his look
as a permission to converse, cleared his voice, and said urbanely,

"We have had a little frost by night, down here, sir, and a little fire
is no great harm--it is rather pleasant, don't you think?"

The stranger bowed acquiescence with a transient wintry smile, and
looked gratefully on the fire.

"This place is a good deal admired, sir, and people come a good way to
see it; you have been here perhaps before?"

"Many years ago."

Here was another pause.

"Places change imperceptibly--in detail, at least--a good