our horses, which conveyed him,
had been hired at a town over ninety miles away, and Kellson had driven
that distance in two broiling hot days. As the cart went slowly down
the hill, the moon was rising over the eastern mountains, and a
breathless stillness reigned, broken only by the rumble of the vehicle.
How familiar it all was; he knew every curve of the road and every
ant-heap; every bush looming in the twilight seemed like an old
acquaintance. Nineteen years had passed since Kellson had last seen the
village. A clerk in the local public offices, he had left it on
promotion, and now he was returning as chief Government functionary.
How strange it seemed.

The cart reached the hotel and stopped before the front door. It was
Sunday night. Having a constitutional distaste for public functions of
all kinds, outside the established official routine, Kellson had
purposely left the inhabitants of the village and district in the dark
as to the date of his intended arrival, so as to avoid the agonies of a
public reception, involving an address and a reply, both couched in the
irritating platitudinous phraseology deemed indispensable on such
occasions.

He entered the hotel at which he had formerly boarded and lodged for
several years as a bachelor. The faces he saw were all strange, but the
building was just the same. It was evident that neither the doors, the
windows, nor the verandah had been renewed since he had seen the place
last. The same atmosphere of mustiness permeated the premises; the
ill-laid flags forming the floor of the stoep still with lifted edges lay
in wait for unaccustomed feet. He knew those flags, and the old habit
of stepping high when he walked on them returned. He even remembered,
as he walked along, the places where it was safe to tread and those to
be avoided.

The servant showed him to his room, the same he had occupied twenty
years ago. Twenty years; good God! what a long time. He was then
twenty-six years old--and now. How many things had happened in those
years. The servant lit the candle, and Kellson looked round the room.
Yes; just as he had expected; there was the same furniture. The
wall-paper was different, that was all. He passed his hand over the foot of
the iron bedstead and drew out one of the slides of the old, rickety
chest of drawers. How many people had slept in that bed since that
morning when he had here packed his portmanteau before carrying it out
to the post-cart.

He w