Very soon after the events had taken place which have been described in our last chapter, Peace, much to his astonishment, had a rencontre with a person who was perhaps the very last in the world he would have expected to meet. Our hero had to take some work home to a customer who resided at about a mile-and-a-half’s distance from his workshop. One fine bright sunshiny afternoon he bent his steps in the direction of the habitation in question. As he was proceeding along a bye road he discovered in the distance a miserably-clad, cadaverous-looking man, whose features he remembered to have seen before, although they were, to say the truth, strangely and sadly altered. At first he was in some doubt as to the identity of the traveller, but as he approached nearer he was surprised in no small degree to find that the miserable-looking man was none other than John Bristow, whom the reader will remember as Peace’s fellow-lodger in the town of Bradford. Peace was fairly taken back when he recognised Bristow; he would if it had been possible have avoided a meeting, but as this could not very well be compassed, he determined to put the best face on the matter. What could have brought Bristow to this part of the country was his first thought? “Was he in search of anybody? Had he any communication to make?” These were questions he could not answer satisfactorily. Bristow was in a most miserable plight; his clothes were ragged and torn, and hung upon his attenuated frame like those of a scarecrow; he looked the very personification of squalid misery. Peace never remembered to have seen such a sudden alteration in anyone. “Is this the right road to Saltwich?” said Bristow, addressing Peace, whom he evidently did not at first recognise. “You’ll have to turn round to the right when you reach the finger-post at the end,” returned Peace. The man started. “Good luck to you, mate!” he ejaculated. “Why hang it all, if it isn’t Charles Peace.” “You are right, and pray, in the name of all that’s wonderful, what brings you to this part of the world, John Bristow?” enquired our hero. “One place is the same as another to me now,” returned his companion. “It matters little where I go or what I do. Everything goes wrong with me――has been going wrong ever since I last saw you. It appears likely to go wrong for the remainder of my life.” “Why, mercy on me! you are so strangely altered,” said Peace, “that positively I hardly knew you. What has brought you to this? You look twenty years older.” “Do I?” he exclaimed, with one of the jerks or nods which were habitual to him. “Do I? Well, I suppose I do. Anyway, I feel more than twenty years older. I’ve had a bad time of it――have been in the infirmary――and am next door to starving, that’s how I am.” “And have you left the old shop?”