"It must be pretty hard to be miserable on twenty or thirty thousand a year!" said Miss Tranter.
"You think so? Now, I should say it was very easy. For when one has everything, one wants nothing."
"Well, isn't it all right to want nothing?" she queried, looking at him inquisitively.
"All right? No!—rather all wrong! For want stimulates the mind and body to work, and work generates health and energy,—and energy is the pulse of life. Without that pulse, one is a mere husk of a man—as I am!" He doffed his cap again. "Thank you for all your friendliness. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye! Perhaps I shall see you again some time this way?"
"Perhaps—but——"
"With your friend?" she suggested.
"Ay—if I find my friend—then possibly I may return. Meanwhile, all good be with you!"
He turned away, and began to ascend the path indicated across the moor. Once he looked back and waved his hand. Miss Tranter, in response, waved her piece of knitting. Then she went on clicking her needles rapidly through a perfect labyrinth of stitches, her eyes fixed all the while on the tall, thin, frail figure which, with the assistance of a stout stick, moved slowly along between the nodding daisies.
"He's what they call a mystery," she said to herself. "He's as true-born a gentleman as ever lived—with a gentleman's ways, a gentleman's voice, and a gentleman's hands, and yet he's 'on the road' like a tramp! Well! there's many ups and downs in life, certainly, and those that's rich to-day may be poor to-morrow. It's a queer world—and God who made it only knows what it was made for!"