He hesitated a moment, then advanced cautiously and laid his hand upon it. How long, how long--it seemed as if in another existence--since he had had a book like this in his hand! He caught its title eagerly, and the name of the author. They were new to him. He turned the pages with alert interest. The book had been published since the date of his exile. Once more he fluttered the leaves, and, like some famished, thirsting wretch drinking in great eager gulps, he began to absorb the contents, his eyes glowing like coals, his breath hot, his hands trembling with nervous haste, knowing that his time for this draught of elixir, this refreshment of his soul, was brief, so brief. It would never do, for a man so humbly clad as he was, to be caught reading with evident delight a scholarly book like this. When at last he threw himself down amongst the thick and fragrant mint beside the rock, his shoulders supported on an outcropping ledge, his hat fallen on the ground, he had forgotten all thought of caution, he was not conscious how the time sped by. His eyes were alight, moving swiftly from side to side of the page. His face glowed with responsive enthusiasm to the high thought of the author. His troubles had done much to chasten its expression and had chiseled its features. It had never been so serious, so intelligent, so refined, as now. He did not see how the shadows shifted, till in this umbrageous retreat a glittering lance of sunlight pierced the green gloom. He was not even aware of another presence, a sudden entrance. A young lady, climbing up from the precipitous slope below, started abruptly at sight of him, jeopardizing her already uncertain footing, then stared for an instant in blank amazement. So precarious was the footing where she had paused, however, that there was no safe choice but to continue her ascent. He did not heed more the rustle of her garments, as she struggled to the level ground, than the rustle of the leaves, or the rattle of the little avalanche of gravel as her foot upon the verge dislodged the pebbles. Only when the shaft of sunlight struck full upon her white piqué dress, and the reflected glare was flung over the page of the book and into his eyes with that refulgent quality which a thick white fabric takes from the sun, he glanced up at the dazzling apparition with a galvanic start which jarred his every fibre. He stared at her for one moment as if he were in a dream; he had come from so far,--so very far! Then he grasped his troublous identity, and sprang to his feet in great embarrassment. “I must apologize,” he said, with his most courteous intonation, “for taking the liberty of reading your book.” “Not at all,” she murmured civilly, but still looking at him in much surprise and with intent eyes.