ally 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.

"A man!" he gasped. "Foot of St. Wrytha's Stair there, doctor. Dead--or
if not dead, near it. I saw it!"

Bryce seized Varner's arm and gave it a shake.

"You saw--what?" he demanded.

"Saw him--fall. Or rather--flung!" panted Varner. "Somebody--couldn't
see who, nohow--flung him right through yon doorway, up there. He fell
right over the steps--crash!" Bryce looked over the tops of the yews and
cypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed--a
low, open archway gained by the half-ruinous stair. It was forty feet at
least fro