He was not much changed, it is true. The face was the same haunting unearthly mask which had hung up before me in the court. A gurgoyle, I had called it; and still the stony inhumanity of it was the first thing to impress me. It was older only, and more scarred by wind and weather. The drench of unhealing waters had streaked its forehead and darkened the pits of its eyes; but with no other result than to emphasize the fire in them, and intensify the loneliness of the lost soul they windowed. I gave a little foolish fluttering laugh. “So you remember me?” he said. “Yes,” I answered. “But how do you know me?” That was the wonder, indeed. Medusa might not change to Perseus as Perseus to Medusa. “Were you looking for me?” I asked. “Did you know I was living here?” He shook his head slightly. “No more, young sir, than I know the ultimate goal of my destiny.” It suddenly occurred to me that, after all, he had said nothing to associate me with any memory of his own. I blushed like a fool, and stammered out-- “I suppose you aren’t mistaking----” He put up his hand to interrupt me. “Your father gave his life for me, sir. Not a shadowed feature, not a transmitted gesture of his, but I should feel myself cursed for failing to identify, if I lived to the age of Methuselah. You are Master Richard Bowen. You will hardly deny it, I think.” I giggled again, more foolish than ever. “No, I won’t,” I said. “And have you yet found Abel, Mr. Pilbrow?” Now, in a wonderful way, my ingenuous question wrought a sudden transformation in the man. As once before, his hand swept the hard evil from his eyes, and when those looked at me again, they were as soft as a weary woman’s. The change was infinitely pathetic, illuminating; and in the light of it, I seemed to see for the first time how worn was this poor creature, how tired and woeful, and how, perhaps, he wore his outlawry for a mask. “If I doubted before, could I doubt now!” he cried. “Staunch, and unspoiled by the years! And how could it be otherwise with _his_ son!” He had seized my hands in his; and, embarrassed as I was, his words moved me to a strange understanding. “Mr. Pilbrow,” I cried, as I had cried those long years before, “he said you did not do it.” He gazed at me rapturously a moment, then fell to urging me to walk with him. “Come,” he cried. “I must move, or I shall be a woman. Ask me, ask me everything. This accident--this destiny--this heart-filling spring in the desert! No, I have not found Abel, my friend, my dear friend, though I have never ceased to seek him, like the spectral dog I am.”