During the course of an idle morning, Coryndon wandered to the church, and saw that at 5.30 p.m. the Rev. Francis Heath was holding service.  After the service there would be a choir practice, and Coryndon, having made a mental note of the hour, went back to luncheon with Hartley.

The afternoon sunlight was dreaming in the garden, and the drowsy air was full of the scent of flowers.  Coryndon had something to do, and he was wise enough to make no settled plan as to how he would do it, beforehand.  He put away all thought of Absalom and the other lives connected with the disappearance of the Christian boy, and let his thoughts drift out, drawing in the light and colour of the world outside.

Yesterday has power over to-day; to-morrow even greater power, for to-morrow holds a gift or a whip, and Coryndon knew this, thinking out his little philosophy of life.  To be able to handle a situation which may require a strength that is above tact or diplomacy, he knew that all those yesterdays must give their store of gathered strength and knowledge.

As there was no running water to watch, Coryndon watched the shadows and the light playing hide-and-go-seek through the leaves, through his half-closed eyes.  They made a pattern on the ground, and the pattern was faultless in its beauty.  Nature alone can do such things.  He looked at the far-off trees of the park, green now, to turn into soft blue masses later on when the day waned, and the intrinsic value of blue as colour flitted over his fancy.  The music that was part of his nature rippled and sang in obligato to his thoughts, and because he loved music he loved colour and knew the connection between sound and tint.  Colour, to its lightest, least value, was music, expressing itself in another way.

Hartley went out with his dog; went softly because he believed his friend slept, and Coryndon did not stir.  Somewhere in the centre of things actual, Hartley lived his cheerful, happy life, dreaming when he was lonely of the woman who darned his socks and smiled at him.  In Coryndon’s life there was no woman either visionary or real, and he wondered why he was exempt from these natural dreams of a man.  He was very humble about himself.  He knew that he was only a tracker, a brain that carried a body, not a healthy animal body that controlled the greater part of a brain.  He was given the power to grip motives and to read hearts, and beyond that he only lived in his fingers when he played.  He had his dreams for company when he shut the door on the other half of his active brain, and he had his own thrills of excitement and intense joy when he found what he was seeking, but beyond this there was nothing, and he asked for nothing.  Blue shadows, and a drifting into peace, that was the end.  He pulled himself together abruptly, for it was five o’clock, and time for him to start.

When Coryndon had drunk some tea, he started out on foot to St. Jude’s Church.  He knew that he would get there in time to find the Rev. Francis Heath.  The choir practice did not take very long, and as he walked into the church they were singing the last verses of a hymn.  Heath sat in one of the choir pews, a sombre figure in his black cassock, listening attentively.