s he had seen, as
a boy, quietly berthed by a familiar wharf, but with the breath of far
seas and strange harbours in their shrouds... Certainly this girl would
understand. He went up to her quietly, lifting his hat, observing the
forms--wishing her to see at once that he was "a gentleman."

"I am a stranger to you," he began, sitting down beside her, "but your
face is so extremely intelligent that I feel... I feel it is the face
I've waited for... looked for everywhere; and I want to tell you--"

The girl's eyes widened: she rose to her feet. She was escaping him!

In his dismay he ran a few steps after her, and caught her roughly by
the arm.

"Here--wait--listen! Oh, don't scream, you fool!" he shouted out.

He felt a hand on his own arm; turned and confronted a policeman.
Instantly he understood that he was being arrested, and something hard
within him was loosened and ran to tears.

"Ah, you know--you KNOW I'm guilty!"

He was conscious that a crowd was forming, and that the girl's
frightened face had disappeared. But what did he care about her face? It
was the policeman who had really understood him. He turned and followed,
the crowd at his heels...

VII

In the charming place in which he found himself there were so many
sympathetic faces that he felt more than ever convinced of the certainty
of making himself heard.

It was a bad blow, at first, to find that he had not been arrested
for murder; but Ascham, who had come to him at once, explained that he
needed rest, and the time to "review" his statements; it appeared that
reiteration had made them a little confused and contradictory. To
this end he had willingly acquiesced in his removal to a large quiet
establishment, with an open space and trees about it, where he had
found a number of intelligent companions, some, like himself, engaged
in preparing or reviewing statements of their cases, and others ready to
lend an interested ear to his own recital.

For a time he was content to let himself go on the tranquil current of
this existence; but although his auditors gave him for the most part
an encouraging attention, which, in some, went the length of really
brilliant and helpful suggestion, he gradually felt a recurrence of his
old doubts. Either his hearers were not sincere, or else they had
less power to aid him than they boasted. His interminable conferences
resulted in nothing, and as the benefit of the long rest made itself
felt, it prod