“But I could do nothing for Joshua in this respect.  I assured him that my apparent exemption from the effects of passing years was perfectly natural, and was not due to drugs or medicaments.

“Joshua lived many years after that day, and did a good deal of excellent military work; but his life was not long enough to satisfy him.  He fell sick, was obliged to give up his command to his relative Caleb, and finally died, in his one hundred and twenty-eighth year.”

“Which ought to satisfy him, I should say,” said Mrs. Crowder.

“I have never yet met a thoroughbred worker,” said Mr. Crowder, “who was satisfied to stop his work before he had finished it, no matter how old he might happen to be.  But my last meeting with Joshua taught me a lesson which in those days had not been sufficiently impressed upon my mind.  I became convinced that I must not allow people to think that I could live along for twenty years or more without growing older, and after that I gave this matter a great deal more attention than I had yet bestowed upon it.”

“It is a pity,” said Mrs. Crowder, “that thy life should have been marred by such constant anxiety.”

“Yes,” said he; “but this is a suspicious world, and it is dangerous for a man to set himself apart from his fellow-beings, especially if he does it in some unusual fashion which people cannot understand.”

“But I hope now,” said his wife, “that those days of suspicion are entirely past.”

Now the conversation was getting awkward; it could not be pleasant for any one of us to talk about what the world of the future might think of Mr. Crowder when it came to know all about him, and, appreciating this, my host quickly changed the subject.

“There is a little story I have been wanting to tell you,” said he, addressing his wife, “which I think would interest you.  It is a love-story in which I was concerned.”

“Oh!” said Mrs. Crowder, looking up quickly, “a scholar?”

“No,” he answered; “not this time.  Early in the fourteenth century I was living at Avignon, in the south of France.  At that time I was making my living by copying law papers.  You see, I was down in the world again.”

Mrs. Crowder sighed, but said nothing.

“One Sunday morning I was in the Church of St. Claire, and, kneeling a little in front of me, I noticed a lady who did not seem to be paying the proper attention to her devotions.  She fidgeted uneasily, and every now and then she would turn her head a little to the right, and then bring it back quickly and turn it so much in my direction that I could see the profile of her face.  She was a good-looking woman, not very young, and evidently nervous and disturbed.