My first meeting with the man whose story I have set out to relate was in Plymouth. I had been standing in the harbour, hoping that the friends I had come to meet might yet appear, even although the chances of their doing so had become very small. Perhaps a hundred passengers had landed at the historic quay, and practically all of them had rushed away to catch the London train. I had scrutinized each face eagerly, but when the last passenger had crossed the gangway I had been reluctantly compelled to assume that my friends, for some reason or other, had not come. I was about to turn away, and go back to the town, when some one touched my arm. 'This is Plymouth, isn't it?' I turned, and saw a young man. At that time I was not sure he was young; he might have been twenty-eight, or he might have been forty-eight. His face was marked by a thousand lines, while a look suggestive of age was in his eyes. He spoke to me in an apologetic sort of way, and looked at me wistfully. I did not answer him for a second, as his appearance startled me. The strange admixture of youth and age gave me an eerie feeling. 'Yes,' I replied, 'this is Plymouth. At least, this is Plymouth Harbour.' He turned toward the vessel, and looked at it for some seconds, and then heaved a sigh. 'Have you friends on board?' I asked. 'Oh, no,' he replied. 'I have just left it. I thought I remembered Plymouth, and so I got off.' 'Where have you come from?' 'From India.' 'Where did you come from?' 'From Bombay. It was a long journey to Bombay, but it seemed my only chance.' Then he shuddered. 'Aren't you well?' I asked. 'Oh, yes, I am very well now. But everything seems difficult to realize; you, now, and all this,' and he cast his eyes quickly around him, 'seem to be something which exists in the imagination, rather than objective, tangible things.' He spoke perfect English, and his manner suggested education, refinement. 'You don't mind my speaking to you, do you?' he added somewhat nervously. 'Not at all,' and I scrutinized him more closely. 'If you did not speak English so well,' I said, 'I should have thought you were an Indian,'--and then I realized that I had been guilty of a _faux pas_, for I saw his face flush and his lips tremble painfully. 'You were thinking of my clothes,' was his reply. 'They were the best I could get. When I realized that I was alive, I was half naked; I was very weak and ill, too. I picked up these things,' and he glanced at his motley garments, 'where and how I could. On the whole, however, people were very kind to me. When I got to Bombay, my feeling was that I must get to England.' 'And where are you going now?' I asked. 'I don't know. Luckily I have a little money; I found it inside my vest. I suppose I must have put it there before----' and then he became silent, while the strange, wistful look in his eyes was intensified. 'What is your name?' I asked.