"A gentleman must have been anxious to get on with his journey to travel on a day like this."
"I was--I had something to do at the end of it."
"Have you come far, sir?"
"Altogether? Yes, very far."
"From Reykjavik perhaps?"
"Farther than that--from England."
"From England!"
"From London."
As he stooped to put on the slippers he thought his mother was looking at him, and he trembled between fear and hope of being recognized.
"I suppose," he said--his head was down--"I suppose you've never been as far as that, landlady?"