room and the room I pointed out upstairs, and he stayed here until the
Thursday, when he left soon after lunch--the same car came for him. And
he hadn't been in the house an hour, gentlemen, before I wondered if he
hadn't been here before."

"Interesting--very!" said Mr. Pawle. "Now, why, ma'am did you
wonder that?"

"Well, sir," replied Mrs. Summers, "because, after he'd looked round the
house, and seen his room upstairs, he went out to the front door, and
then I followed him, to ask if he had any particular wishes about his
dinner that evening. Our front door, as you will see in the morning,
fronts the market square, and from it you can see about all there is to
see of the town. He was standing at the door, under the porch, looking
all round him, and I overheard him talking to himself as I went up
behind him.

"'Aye!' he was saying, as he looked this way and that, 'there's the old
church, and the old moot-hall, and the old market-place, and the old
gabled and thatched houses, and even the old town pump--they haven't
changed a bit, I reckon, in all these years!' Then he caught sight of me,
and he smiled. 'Not many changes in this old place, landlady, in your
time?' he said pleasantly. 'No, sir,' I answered. 'We don't change much
in even a hundred years in Marketstoke.' 'No!' he said, and shook his
head. 'No--the change is in men, in men!' And then he suddenly set
straight off across the square to the churchyard. 'You've known
Marketstoke before,' I said to myself."

"You didn't ask him that?" inquired Mr. Pawle, eagerly.