To-night, on the Guernsey waste-land, with heaven so broad above, with earth so friendly, the past seemed to return to him without effort of his own and without sting. The fortnight he passed in London, the unknown relatives who beset the sick man’s bed, the scene amidst a London churchyard’s gloom, wherein he, Geff, in hired crape, was chief mourner, the reading of the will, the return to Cambridge--all this, at first, floated before his vision in grey monotone, as scenes will do in which one has played a spectator’s rather than an actor’s part. Then in a moment (Geoffrey’s half-closed eyes scanning the moor’s horizon, the soft airs blowing on his face) there came upon him a flash of light. It was so intolerably clear that every leaf and flower and pebble of a cottage garden in far-off Cambridgeshire stood out before him with a vividness that was poignant, a vividness that had in it the stab of sudden bodily pain. Springing to his feet, Geoffrey resolved to brood over the irrevocable no longer. He emptied the ashes from his pipe, then replaced it, with Dinah’s delicate morsel of handiwork, in his pocket. He took out his watch. It was more than time for him to be off; and after a farewell glance at the campanula-shrouded knolls, Geff started briskly in the direction of Tintajeux Manoir. But the ghosts would not be laid. There were yet two pictures, a garden scene, an interior, upon which, whether he walked or remained still, Geoffrey Arbuthnot felt himself forced, in the spirit, to look. The garden scene, first: time, seven of a June evening, sky and atmosphere rosy as these that surrounded him now. Thirsting to see Dinah’s face, Geoffrey walked straight away from Cambridge station, he remembered, on his arrival from London. He was dusty and wearied when he drew near the village. The rectory, the seven public-houses of Lesser Cheriton, looked more blankly uninhabited than usual. Some barn-door fowls, a few shining-necked pigeons, strutted up and down the High Street, its only occupants. When he reached the cottage no one answered his ring. The aunt was evidently absent. Dinah, thought Geoffrey, would be busy among her flowers, or might have taken her sewing to the orchard that lay at the bottom of the garden. He had been told, on some former visit, to go round, if the bell was unanswered, to a side entrance, lift the kitchen-latch, and if the door was unbolted, enter. He did so now; passed through the kitchen, burnished and neat as though it came out of a Dutch picture--through the tiny, cool-smelling dairy, and out into the large shadows of the garden beyond. Silence met him everywhere.