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.