"I beg your pardon," Wilbraham said to him, hesitating.
"I wanted to see you," the Stranger said, smiling.
When Wilbraham was telling me this part of his story he seemed to be enveloped—"enveloped" is the word that best conveys my own experience of him—by some quite radiant happiness. He smiled at me confidentially as though he were telling me something that I had experienced with him and that must give me the same happiness that it gave to him.
"Ought I to have expected? Ought I to have known—" he stammered.
"No, you couldn't have known," the Stranger answered. "You're not late. I knew when you would come."
Wilbraham told me that during these moments he was surrendering himself to an emotion and intimacy and companionship that was the most wonderful thing that he had ever known. It was that intimacy and companionship, he told me, for which all his days he had been searching. It was the one thing that life never seemed to give; even in the greatest love, the deepest friendship, there was that seed of loneliness hidden. He had never found it in man or woman.
Now it was so wonderful that the first thing he said was: "And now you're going to stay, aren't you? You won't go away at once...?"
"Of course, I'll stay," he answered. "If you want me."
His Visitor was dressed in some dark suit; there was nothing about Him in any way odd or unusual. His Face was thin and pale, His smile kindly.
His English was without accent. His voice was soft and very melodious.