I dismounted, and going to a pool of water near the roadway I looked at the reflection of my own face.

I was changed indeed, scarcely should I have known it for that of the lad who had ridden up this hill some twenty years ago.

Now, alas! the eyes were sunken and very sorrowful, the features were sharp, and there was more grey than black in the beard and hair.

I should scarcely have known it myself, would any others know it, I wondered?
Would there be any to know it indeed?
In twenty years many die and others pass out of sight; should I find a friend at all among the living?
Since I read the letters which Captain Bell of the 'Adventuress' had brought me before I sailed for Hispaniola, I had heard no tidings from my home, and what tidings awaited me now?
Above all what of Lily, was she dead or married or gone?
Mounting my horse I pushed on again at a canter, taking the road past Waingford Mills through the fords and Pirnhow town, leaving Bungay upon my left.

In ten minutes I was at the gate of the bridle path that runs from the Norwich road for half a mile or more beneath the steep and wooded bank under the shelter of which stands the Lodge at Ditchingham.
By the gate a man loitered in the last rays of the sun.