He was disturbed by another knock at the door, and rose to open it, rather deprecating a call from anybody just then.  A stoutly built man stood on the doorstep, with an alien, unfamiliar air about his figure and bearing—­an air which might have been called colonial by people of cosmopolitan experience.  It was the man who had asked the way at Peter’s finger.  Henchard nodded, and looked inquiry.

“Good morning, good morning,” said the stranger with profuse heartiness.  “Is it Mr. Henchard I am talking to?”

“My name is Henchard.”

“Then I’ve caught ’ee at home—­that’s right.  Morning’s the time for business, says I. Can I have a few words with you?”

“By all means,” Henchard answered, showing the way in.

“You may remember me?” said his visitor, seating himself.

Henchard observed him indifferently, and shook his head.

“Well—­perhaps you may not.  My name is Newson.”

Henchard’s face and eyes seemed to die.  The other did not notice it.  “I know the name well,” Henchard said at last, looking on the floor.

“I make no doubt of that.  Well, the fact is, I’ve been looking for ’ee this fortnight past.  I landed at Havenpool and went through Casterbridge on my way to Falmouth, and when I got there, they told me you had some years before been living at Casterbridge.  Back came I again, and by long and by late I got here by coach, ten minutes ago.  ’He lives down by the mill,’ says they.  So here I am.  Now—­that transaction between us some twenty years agone—­’tis that I’ve called about.  ’Twas a curious business.  I was younger then than I am now, and perhaps the less said about it, in one sense, the better.”

“Curious business!  ’Twas worse than curious.  I cannot even allow that I’m the man you met then.  I was not in my senses, and a man’s senses are himself.”

“We were young and thoughtless,” said Newson.  “However, I’ve come to mend matters rather than open arguments.  Poor Susan—­hers was a strange experience.”

“She was a warm-hearted, home-spun woman.  She was not what they call shrewd or sharp at all—­better she had been.”

“She was not.”

“As you in all likelihood know, she was simple-minded enough to think that the sale was in a way binding.  She was as guiltless o’ wrong-doing in that particular as a saint in the clouds.”

“I know it, I know it.  I found it out directly,” said Henchard, still with averted eyes.  “There lay the sting o’t to me.  If she had seen it as what it was she would never have left me.  Never!  But how should she be expected to know?  What advantages had she?  None.  She could write her own name, and no more.