He was up betimes the next day, and was soon swinging forward again on the last stage of his journey. His two companions of the day before still kept him company; the sea-faring man from Styles Cross Roads, as communicative as ever, the other reserved and silent. But about midmorning the latter turned abruptly to Benson to say: “I observe, sir,” and his manner was precise and formal, “I observe, sir, that you appear to have come some distance. If I mistake not I saw you on the boat up from Cincinnati? May I be so bold as to ask if you are going much further?” “No, fortunately; I am almost at my journey's end. Benson is my destination,” answered the lawyer. “Oh, indeed? That is my destination, also.” Benson inclined his head. There was a long silence. The coach stopped at a wayside tavern; and the sailor, after shaking Benson warmly by the hand, left it, to finish his journey across the State by other means. The dark man watched the rolling figure of the sea-faring man, as he disappeared through the tavern door, then he cleared his throat. “I understood you to say you were going on to Benson?” said he, resuming the conversation where he had previously abandoned it. “Yes, it is my home.” “Perhaps you are acquainted with my brother, Mr. Stillman, the Baptist clergyman?” “Oh, very well, and you are Dr. Stillman?” As he spoke, the lawyer glanced curiously at his companion, for Dr. Stillman was famous. “May I ask your name?” said the doctor. “Benson; you probably knew my father.” The doctor gave him a wintry smile. He felt that his purposes separated him from the busy bustling world; its trafficking laity he had found, rarely paused that it might understand his motives, and he had long since ceased to look for sympathy from men occupied with their own concerns. It was the emotional sex which seemed to understand him best. “You have been engaged in missionary work in India?” said Benson. “In Burmah, yes; I have only recently returned to America, and have spent the summer lecturing. Now I am going to my brother's for a short stay.” Benson was aware that the man had a certain curious distinction. His eyes, dark and deep set under narrow brows, were piercing and compelling; they could burn, too, with a wonderful light, just as his reserve could drop before the wealth of his own emotions, emotions that he could make others feel poignantly, while they yet seemed oddly foreign to the man himself. “Do you expect to return to Burmah?” asked Benson. “My absence is only temporary. My labours are not finished there yet; indeed they are only just begun.” With an absorbed air, he continued. “Events made it seem advisable for me to temporarily abandon my work, for only recently I suffered a most serious bereavement in the death of my wife.” “I regret exceedingly to hear it,” said Benson civilly. “From the first, when she joined me in the East, where I had preceded her, I doubted if she could endure the climate.”