That was the secret, that the magic; it flashed vaguely for Grainger--though by its light he saw more vividly his own errand as ridiculous--that a life of thought, pure thought, if one could only achieve it, was the only _safe_ life. Where, in this adjusted system of beauty and contemplation, would his appeals find foothold? He dashed back the crowding doubts, summoning his own crude forces. The man who admitted them said that Mr. Palairet was in the garden, and stepping from opened windows at the back of the house, they found themselves on the sunny spaces of the lawn with its encompassing trees and its wandering border of flowers. Gavan was sitting with a book in the shade of the great yew-tree. In summer flannels, a panama hat tilted over his eyes, he was very white, very tenuous, very exquisite. And he was the center of it all, the secret securely his, the magic all at his disposal. Seeing them he rose, dropping his book into his chair, strolling over the miraculous green to meet them, showing no haste, no hesitation, no surprise. “I’ve come on particular business,” Grainger said, “and I’ll stroll about until you and Mr. Best are done with the hospital.” Mr. Best, still with sadness in his manner, promised not to keep Mr. Palairet long and they went inside. Grainger was left standing under the yew-tree. He took up Gavan’s book, while the sense of frustration, and of rebellion against it, rose in him. The book was French and dealt with an obscure phase of Byzantine history. Gavan’s neat notes marked passages concerning some contemporary religious phenomena. Grainger flung down the book, careless of crumpled leaves, and wandered off abruptly, among the hedges and into the garden. It was a very different garden from the old Scotch one where a sweet pensiveness seemed always to hover and where romance whispered and beckoned. This garden, steeped in sunlight, and where plums and pears on the hot rosy walls shone like jewels among their crisp green leaves, was unshadowed, unhaunted, smiling and decorous--the garden of placid wisdom and Epicurean calm. Grainger, as he walked, felt at his heart a tug of strange homesickness and yearning for that Northern garden, its dim gray walls and its disheveled nooks and corners. Were they all done with it forever? By the time he had returned to the lawn Gavan was just emerging from the house. They met in the shadow of the yew. “I’m glad to see you, Grainger,” Gavan said, with a smile that struck Grainger as faded in quality. “This place is a sort of harbor for tired workers, you know. You should have looked me up before, or are you never tired enough for that?” “I don’t feel the need of harbors, yet. One never sees you in London.” “No, the lounging life down here suits me.” “Your little parson doesn’t see it in that light. He has been telling me how you live up to your duties as neighbor and parishioner.”