They were all now silent. They must have walked it seemed to them, for miles. An endless walk that had no beginning and no end. And then Harkness was strangely aware—how, he never knew—that Dunbar and Hesther were drawing closer together.
He felt that new relation that he had in a way created beginning to grow between them. She drew away from Harkness ever so slightly. Then suddenly he knew that Dunbar had put his arm round her and was holding her up. She was so weary that she did not know what she was doing—but for that quiet, resolute, determined boy it must have been a moment of great triumph, the first time in their two lives that she had in any way surrendered to him or allowed him to care for her. Harkness was once more alone.
They walked and walked and walked. They did not know where they were walking, but in their minds they were sure it was straight to Cranach.
Suddenly, after, as it seemed, hours of silence in a dead world, Dunbar cried:
"We're there. Oh, thank God! we're there. This is the rectory wall."
A wall was before them and an open gate. They walked through the gate, only dimly seen, stumbled where the lawn rose from the gravel, then forward again, down on to the gravel again. The door was open.
Like somnambulists they walked forward. The door closed behind them.
Like somnambulists awakened they saw lights, a dim hall where flags waved.
For Harkness there was something familiar—quite close to him, the chatter-chatter of a clock, like a coughing dog. Familiar? He stared.
Some one was standing, looking at him and smiling.