“That remains to be proved,” remarked Bryce.  “The phrase is one of much elasticity.  But for the present—­I go!”

He walked out into the Close, and without as much as a backward look struck off across the sward in the direction in which, ten minutes before, he had sent the strange man.  He had rooms in a quiet lane on the farther side of the Cathedral precinct, and his present intention was to go to them to leave his bag and make some further arrangements.  He had no idea of leaving Wrychester—­he knew of another doctor in the city who was badly in need of help:  he would go to him—­would tell him, if need be, why he had left Ransford.  He had a multiplicity of schemes and ideas in his head, and he began to consider some of them as he stepped out of the Close into the ancient enclosure which all Wrychester folk knew by its time-honoured name of Paradise.  This was really an outer court of the old cloisters; its high walls, half-ruinous, almost wholly covered with ivy, shut in an expanse of turf, literally furnished with yew and cypress and studded with tombs and gravestones.  In one corner rose a gigantic elm; in another a broken stairway of stone led to a doorway set high in the walls of the nave; across the enclosure itself was a pathway which led towards the houses in the south-east corner of the Close.  It was a curious, gloomy spot, little frequented save by people who went across it rather than follow the gravelled paths outside, and it was untenanted when Bryce stepped into it.  But just as he walked through the archway he saw Ransford.  Ransford was emerging hastily from a postern door in the west porch—­so hastily that Bryce checked himself to look at him.  And though they were twenty yards apart, Bryce saw that Ransford’s face was very pale, almost to whiteness, and that he was unmistakably agitated.  Instantly he connected that agitation with the man who had come to the surgery door.

“They’ve met!” mused Bryce, and stopped, staring after Ransford’s retreating figure.  “Now what is it in that man’s mere presence that’s upset Ransford?  He looks like a man who’s had a nasty, unexpected shock—­a bad ’un!”

He remained standing in the archway, gazing after the retreating figure, until Ransford had disappeared within his own garden; still wondering and speculating, but not about his own affairs, he turned across Paradise at last and made his way towards the farther corner.  There was a little wicket-gate there, set in the ivied wall; as Bryce opened it, a man in the working dress of a stone-mason, whom he recognized as being one of the master-mason’s staff, came running out of the bushes.  His face, too, was white, and his eyes were big with excitement.  And recognizing Bryce, he halted, panting.

“What is it, Varner?” asked Bryce calmly.  “Something happened?”

The man swept his hand across his forehead as if he were dazed, and then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.