ortsmouth in those days. The place swarmed with seamen and
officers; troops were marching in and out; carriages-and-four were
dashing down from London; bands were playing; the hotels swarmed with
visitors come to see their friends off; ships were being commissioned
and fitted out with unwonted rapidity; and all was life, activity, and
energy. I now and then, on my way home, took a walk up High Street, for
the amusement of observing the bustling, laughing, talking, busy throng.

One evening, as I turned to go back, my eye fell on the countenance of a
man whose features I felt sure I knew. In an instant I recollected that
they were those of Charles Iffley. Forgetting all I had heard to his
disparagement, I was going to follow him, when he turned into a cross
street among a crowd who were looking on at some itinerant tumblers, and
I lost sight of him. I felt very sorry, for I should have been glad to
have shaken him again by the hand and invited him to our house. My wife
and aunt used constantly to walk out a little way on the common to meet
me.

Two days after that, when they met me, they told me that, in the
morning, as they were returning home, they had suddenly encountered
Charles Iffley. He knew them at once, but did not speak. He stopped
for an instant, stared hard at them, and then moved on. When, however,
they reached our house door, they observed that he had followed them at
a distance and remarked where they had gone in. Just as they had
finished their account, the very person we were speaking of appeared at
the further end of the road coming towards us. Directly, however, he
saw us, he stopped short and looked at me with an astonished and
inquiring gaze. He remained long enough, apparently, to ascertain
positively who it was. At first he evidently was in doubt. He had
heard of my death, and believed that I was dead, I concluded, and that
when he saw me alive, and, as he might have suspected, married to the
very woman who had refused to become his wife, he at first could not
trust his senses.

My impulse was immediately to run forward to meet him, but my wife
pressed my arm so tightly that I could not leave her.

"No, no, do not go," she whispered. "I do not like his look. He means
us mischief." She must have felt very strongly, I knew, before she
could have given way to such an expression. Of course, I yielded to her
wish, though it went much against my feelings to turn away from my old
ass