l. I thought I saw some sort of absent-mindedness or absorbedness
in his manner, so that he seemed hardly like himself. Josie was there
with him, and while she and Alice were greeting each other, I saw Jim
scanning the little crowd at the station as if for some other arrival.
At last, his eye told me that whatever it was for which he was looking,
he had found it; and I followed his glance. It rested on the last person
to alight from the train--a tall, sinewy, soldierly-built youngish man,
who wore an overcoat of black, falling away in front, so as to reveal a
black frock coat tightly buttoned up and a snowy shirt-front with a
glittering gem sparkling from the center of it. On his head was a
shining silk hat--a thing so rare in that community as to be noticeable,
and to stamp the wearer as an outsider. His beard was clipped close, and
at the chin ran out into a pronounced Vandyke point. His mustaches were
black, heavy, and waxed. His whole external appearance betokened wealth,
and he exuded mystery. He had not taken two steps from the car before
the people on the platform were standing on tiptoe to see him.

"Bus to the Centropolis?" queried the driver of the omnibus.

The stranger looked at the conveyance, filled as it was with a load of
traveling men and casuals; and, frowning darkly, turned to the negro who
accompanied him, saying, "Haven't you any carriage here, Pearson?"

"Yes, sah," responded the servant, pointing to a closed vehicle. "Right
hyah, sah."

My wife stood looking, with a little amused smile, at the picturesque
group, so out of the ordinary at the time and place. Miss Trescott was
gazing intently at the stranger, and at the moment when he spoke she
clutched my wife's arm so tightly as to startle her. I heard Alice make
some inquiry as to the cause of her agitation, and as I looked at her,
I could see in the one glance her face, gone suddenly white as death,
and the dark visage of the tall stranger. And it seemed to me as if I
had seen the same thing before.

Then, the negro pointing the way to the closed carriage, the group
separated to left and right, the stranger passed through to the
carriage, and the picture, and with it my odd mental impression,
dissolved. The negro lifted two or three heavy bags to the coachman,
gave the transfer man some baggage-checks, and the equipage moved away
toward the hotel. All this took place in a moment, during which the
usual transactions on the platform were suspe