Somehow they found themselves outside in the cool, green garden,
and then, after a stunned silence, Turnbull said: "There is one
thing that was puzzling me all the time, and I understand it
now."

"What do you mean?" asked Evan.

"No man by will or wit," answered Turnbull, "can get out of this
garden; and yet we got into it merely by jumping over a garden
wall. The whole thing explains itself easily enough. That
undefended wall was an open trap. It was a trap laid for two
celebrated lunatics. They saw us get in right enough. And they
will see that we do not get out."

Evan gazed at the garden wall, gravely for more than a minute,
and then he nodded without a word.



XV. THE DREAM OF MACIAN

The system of espionage in the asylum was so effective and
complete that in practice the patients could often enjoy a sense
of almost complete solitude. They could stray up so near to the
wall in an apparently unwatched garden as to find it easy to jump
over it. They would only have found the error of their
calculations if they had tried to jump.

Under this insulting liberty, in this artificial loneliness, Evan