stepped into an alien territory. He glanced back at the street outside as an adventurer who has strayed into an enchanted land may look back for reassurance to the safe and commonplace country he has left.

A man in the rough dress of a gardener was down on his knees beside a flower-bed in the garden, and Burton approached him.

"Is this Dr. Underwood's house?"

"He lives here," the man said coolly, without glancing up.

"You mean he doesn't own it?" Burton asked, more for the sake of pursuing the conversation than from any special interest in Dr. Underwood's tax list.

"He couldn't own that, could he?" asked the man, pointing dramatically at the tulip about which he had been building up the earth.

"You are a philosopher as well as a gardener."

"I?" The man stood up, and Burton saw that he was young, and that his face, in spite of its somberness, was intelligent and not unattractive. "Oh, I am a human being, like the rest of the impertinent race. I try to forget what I am, but I have no right to. You do well to remind me."

"Why do you wish to forget?" asked Burton curiously.

"Who that is human would not wish to forget? Who that is human would not wish at times that he were a tulip, blooming in perfect beauty, and so doing all that could be asked of him? Or an oak, like that one, fulfilling its nature without blame and without harm?"

"Are you Ben Bussey?" Burton asked on a sudden impulse, remembering the name of the young man whom the hotel clerk had mentioned as being the subject of popular stories. This young man was certainly queer enough to give rise to legends.

He was not prepared for the effect of his question. The young man drew back as though he had been struck, while a look where fear and distaste and reproach were mingled darkened his face.

"Who are you?" he asked harshly. "What do you know about Ben Bussey?"

"I have heard the name mentioned, that's all, as that of a young man living with Dr. Underwood. I assure you I meant nothing offensive." Unconsciously he had adopted the tone of one speaking to an equal. This was no common gardener.

"No, I am not Ben Bussey," the young man said, after a pause in which 

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