For seen thus, at close quarters, not only was the said stranger notably, even astonishingly good-looking, but he bore an arresting likeness in build, in carriage, in expression to-- Tom paused perplexed, racking his brains .-- For who, the deuce, was it?
Where had he seen, and that as he could have sworn quite recently, this same forceful countenance lit by russet-grey eyes at once dauntless and sad, deep-set, well apart, the lids of them smooth and delicately moulded?
The man's skin was tanned, by exposure, to a tint but a few shades lighter than that of his gold-brown beard--a beard scrupulously groomed, trimmed to a nicety and by no means deforming the lower part of the face since the line of jaw and chin remained clearly discernible.
Tom turned away and looked absently at The Hard in its broad reposeful frame of lawn and trees.

The cool green foliage of a bank of hydrangeas--running from the great ilexes to the corner of the house--thick-set with discs of misty pink and blue blossom took his fancy, as contrast to the beds of scarlet and crimson geranium naming in the sun.

But below any superficial sense of pleasure in outward things, thought of that likeness--and likeness, dash it all, to whom ?--still vexed him as a riddle he failed to guess.

Obligation to guess it, to find the right answer, obsessed him as of vital interest and importance, though, for the life of him, he could not tell why.

His sense of proportion, his social sense, his self-complacency, grew restive under the pressure of it.