"I understood from the landlord of the _Lion d'Or_" Wrayson said, "that the villagers were allowed the privilege of walking in the park." The man looked at him suspiciously. "You are not of the village," he said. "I am staying there," Wrayson answered. "It makes nothing. For the present, villagers and every one are forbidden to enter. There are visitors at the château." Wrayson turned away. "Very well," he said. "Good night!" The man did not answer him. Wrayson continued to climb the hill which skirted the park. He did not turn round, but he heard the gates open, and he was convinced that he was being watched, if he was not followed. He kept on, however, until he came to some more iron gates, from which stretched the grass avenue which led straight to the gardens of the château. Dimly, through the gathering dusk, he caught a view of it, which was little more than an impression; silver grey and quiet with the peace which the centuries can bring, it seemed to him, with its fantastic towers, and imperfectly visible outline, like a palace of dreams rather than a dwelling house, however magnificent, of material stone and brick. An owl flew out from the trees a few yards to the left of him, and drifted slowly over his head, with much flapping of wings, and a weird, soft call, faintly answered in the distance by his mate; from far away down in the valley came the slow ringing of a single evening bell. Save for these things, a silence almost wonderful reigned. Gradually Wrayson began to feel that sense of soothed nerves, of inexpressible relief, which Nature alone dispenses--her one unequalled drug! All the agitation and turmoil of the last few months seemed to fall away from him. He felt that he had been living in a world of false proportions; that the maze of doubts and fears through which he had wandered was, after all, no part of life itself, merely a tissue of irrelevant issues, to which his distorted imagination had affixed a purely fictitious importance. What concern of his was it how Morris Barnes had lived or died? And who was Bentham that his fate should ever disturb him? The secrets of other people were theirs to keep. His own secret was more wonderful by far. Alone, from amidst the tangle of his other emotions, he felt its survival--more than its survival, its absolute conquest of all other feelings and considerations. It was truth, he knew, that men sought after in the quiet places, and it was the truth which he had found. If he could but see her coming down the avenue, coming to him across the daisy-strewn grass, beneath the shadow of the stately poplars! The very thought set his heart beating like a boy's. He felt the blood singing in his veins, the love-music swelling in his heart. He shook the gates. They, too, were padlocked. Then he listened. There was no sound of any footfall in the road. He moved a few steps higher up, and, making use of the pillars of the gate, he climbed on to the wall.