He was a man with a considerable reserve of strong passion, and he asked his informant what he meant by speaking thus.
The man explained that shortly after the young woman's bereavement a stranger had come to the port.

He had seen her moping on the quay, had been attracted by her youth and loneliness, and in an extraordinarily brief wooing had completely fascinated her--had carried her off, and, as was reported, had married her.

Though he had come by water, he was supposed to live no very great distance off by land.

They were last heard of at Oozewood, in Upper Wessex, at the house of one Wall, a timber- merchant, where, he believed, she still had a lodging, though her husband, if he were lawfully that much, was but an occasional visitor to the place.
'The stranger ?' asked Roger.

'Did you see him?
What manner of man was he ?' 'I liked him not,' said the other.