Gorse bushes, scattered among the heather, showed golden blossoms backgrounded by a blue sky. Their sweet scent came faintly to him. Later in the stronger warmth of the sun, the scent would gain in power and fulness. In the distance, scattered copses lay misty blue patches on sun-gold hillsides. Both far and near was an all-absorbing peace.
He hadn’t a notion how far he walked, nor for how long. Unconsciously he circled, coming at length to a gate, leading into a larch wood.
David turned through it. Here the sun filtered through the branches, flung spots of gold on the red-brown earth of the pathway, on the emerald of the moss lying in great patches among bracken, fern, and bramble. Twigs and branches, at one time wind-torn from the trees, lay in the path, silver-grey, lichen-covered. It was all intensely silent, intensely still. David, stepping by chance on a dried twig, heard it snap with the report of a small pistol in the silence. The loneliness appealed to him; the enchantment of the quiet wood led him on.
Gradually, imperceptibly, his thoughts left externals, turned inwards. Still aware of all that lay around him, they were no longer merely idly diffused upon it; they drew together, focussed. Accustomed to think, though vaguely, in terms of simile rather than in words, he saw in the quiet of the wood something of the quiet which at present held his own life and being. In a sense he suddenly felt himself sleeping, his eyes closed on all that lay behind him. Yet while sleeping, he knew, too, that presently must come awakening. It was in his power, he now felt, to awake at the moment to the old life, as he knew it, to reconstruct his mental conception of that stranger, as it was in his power to retrace his steps. Yet it was almost as if something external to himself waited with him, to withdraw gently should he turn back, to remain with him should he go forward. So for a space of time—a space not measured by the ticking of a clock—David waited. Then suddenly he moved onward down the glade.
And now he knew that his heart was beating fast, pulsing with some curious excitement, though he had not realized it before. His breath, too, was coming rather quickly, like that of a man who has been running. Gradually breathing and heart-beating became normal; yet still the dream sense lingered with him, and he did not want to dispel it.
The path led him into a cuplike hollow among the trees, a moss-grown place, full of deep shadows and a pleasant coolness. On the other side of the hollow the path ascended, through a beech-wood here, silver-green trunks in strong contrast to the deep red of the pathway. Though quiet, this wood was vivid, full of stronger colour than was that on the other side of the hollow.
Coming out at last from among the trees, David found himself on an expanse of grass, on one side skirted by the wood, on the other bordered by a hedge of yew, close and thick and dark. Turning to the left, he walked over the grass, till presently the hedge gave place to a low wicket gate. Here he paused, looking over.
Beyond the hedge was a grey stone building, and beyond the building were grey towers. He knew now where he was. It was the chapel of Delancey Castle facing him. He stood for a moment or so, his hand resting on the gate.
Suddenly the chapel bell broke the silence.