some distance. I had not advanced far before another person came into my
path.

He was a slight, delicate man of middle size. His hair and moustache
were almost quite white. Something in the air of neatness and perfection
about his dress, in the extreme gravity and clearness of his grey eyes,
even in the fine texture of that long, thin, drooping moustache, made it
evident to me that this new companion was not what we call an ordinary
person.

"Your friend did not come in with you." The voice spoke disappointment;
the speaker looked wistfully at the form of the retreating clergyman
which he could just see through a gap in the shrubs.

"You wished him to come?"

"I saw you coming. I came toward the gate in the hope that he might
come in." Then he added a word of cordial greeting. I perceived that I
was walking with my host.

There are some men to whom one instinctively pays the compliment of
direct speech. "I have been walking with two clergymen. I understand
that you differ from both with regard to religious opinion."

It appeared to me that after this speech of mine he took my measure
quietly. He did not say in so many words he did not see that this
difference of opinion was a sufficient reason for their absence, but by
some word or sign he gave me to understand that, adding:

"I feel myself deprived of a great benefit in being without their