← catalogue

The Obstacle Race

by Ethel M. Dell · English · Gutenberg #11520 · 576,185 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Obstacle Race
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Obstacle Race

Author: Ethel M. Dell


        
Release date: March 1, 2004 [eBook #11520]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11520

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OBSTACLE RACE ***

                            The Obstacle Race

                            By Ethel M. Dell

                                  1921




  I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
  TO MY DEAR "HALF-SISTER,"
  MARY,
  WITH MY LOVE

  "So run, that ye may obtain."--_I Corinthians 9:24_

  Give me the ready brain and steadfast face
  To dare the hazard and to run the race,
  The high heart that no scathing word can stay
  O'erleaping obstacles that bar the way,
  The sportsman's soul that, failing at the end,
  Can smile upon the victory of a friend,
  And to my judges make this one protest,--
  A poor performance but--I did my best!




CONTENTS


PART I

CHAPTER

      I.--BETTER THAN LONDON

     II.--SACRIFICE

    III.--MAGIC

     IV.--BROTHER DICK

      V.--THE GREAT MAN

     VI.--THE VISITOR

    VII.--THE OFFER

   VIII.--MRS. FIELDING

     IX.--THE INTRUDER


PART II

      I.--THE WAND OF OFFICE

     II.--MIDSUMMER MADNESS

    III.--A DRAWN BATTLE

     IV.--A POINT OF HONOUR

      V.--THE WAY TO HAPPINESS

     VI.--RECONCILIATION

    VII.--THE SPELL

   VIII.--THE HONOURS OF WAR


PART III

      I.--BIRDS OF A FEATHER

     II.--SALTASH

    III.--THE PRICE

     IV.--KISMET

      V.--THE DRIVING FORCE

     VI.--THE SISTER OF MERCY

    VII.--THE SACRIFICE

   VIII.--THE MESSAGE

     IX.--THE ANSWER


PART IV

      I.--THE FREE GIFT

     II.--FRIENDSHIP

    III.--CONFESSION

     IV.--COUNSEL

      V.--THE THUNDERBOLT

     VI.--COALS OF FIRE

    VII.--FLIGHT

   VIII.--OUT OF THE NIGHT

     IX.--THE FREE PARDON

      X.--THE LAST FENCE




THE OBSTACLE RACE




PART I




CHAPTER I

BETTER THAN LONDON


A long, green wave ran up, gleaming like curved glass in the sunlight,
and broke in a million sparkles against a shelf of shingle. Above the
shingle rose the soft cliffs, clothed with scrubby grass and crowned
with gorse.

"Columbus," said the stranger, "this is just the place for us."

Columbus wagged a cheery tail and expressed complete agreement. He was
watching a small crab hurrying among the stones with a funny frown
between his brows. He was not quite sure of the nature or capabilities of
these creatures, and till he knew more he deemed it advisable to let them
pass without interference. A canny Scot was Columbus, and it was very
seldom indeed that anyone ever got the better of him. He was also a
gentleman to the backbone, and no word his mistress uttered, however
casual, ever passed unacknowledged by him. He always laughed when she
laughed, however obscure the joke.

He smiled now, since she was obviously pleased, but without taking his
sharp little eyes off the object of his interest. Suddenly the scuttling
crab disappeared and he started up with a whine. In a moment he was
scratching in the shingle in eager search, flinging showers of stones
over his companion in the process.

She protested, seizing him by his wiry tail to make him desist.
"Columbus! Don't! You're burying me alive! Do sit down and be sensible,
or I'll never be wrecked on a desert island with you again!"

Columbus subsided, not very willingly, dropping with a grunt into the
hole he had made. His mistress released him, and took out a gold
cigarette case.

"I wonder what I shall do when I've finished these," she mused. "The
simple life doesn't include luxuries of this sort. Only three left,
Columbus! After that, your missis'll starve."

She lighted a cigarette with a faint pucker on her wide brow. Her eyes
looked out over the empty, tumbling sea--grey eyes very level in their
regard under black brows that were absolutely straight and inclined to be
rather heavily accentuated.

"Yes, I wish I'd asked Muff for a few before I came away," was the
outcome of her reflections. "By this time tomorrow I shan't have one
left. Just think of that, my Christopher, and be thankful that you're
just a dog to whom one rat tastes very like another!"

Columbus sneezed protestingly. Whatever his taste in rats,
cigarette smoke did not appeal to him. His mistress's fondness for it
was her only failing in his eyes.

She went on reflectively, her eyes upon the sky-line. "I shall have to
take in washing to eke out a modest living in cigarettes and chocolates.
I can't subsist on Mr. Rickett's Woodbines, that's quite certain. I
wonder if there's a pawnshop anywhere near."

Her voice was low and peculiarly soft; she uttered her words with
something of a drawl. Her hands were clasped about her knees, delicate
hands that yet looked capable. The lips that held the cigarette were
delicately moulded also, but they had considerable character.

"If I were Lady Joanna Farringmore, I suppose I should say something
rather naughty in French, Columbus, to relieve my feelings. But you and I
don't talk French, do we? And we have struck the worthy Lady Jo and all
her crowd off our visiting-list for some time to come. I don't suppose
any of them will miss us much, do you, old chap? They'll just go on round
and round in the old eternal waltz and never realize that it leads to
nowhere." She stretched out her arms suddenly towards the horizon; then
turned and lay down by Columbus on the shingle. "Oh, I'm glad we've cut
adrift, aren't you? Even without cigarettes, it's better than London."

Again Columbus signified his agreement by kissing her hair, in a rather
gingerly fashion on account of the smoke; after which, as she seemed to
have nothing further to say, he got up, shook himself, and trotted off to
explore the crannies in the cliffs.

His mistress pillowed her dark head on her arm, and lay still, with the
sea singing along the ridge of shingle below her. She finished her
cigarette and seemed to doze. A brisk wind was blowing from the shore,
but the beach itself was sheltered. The sunlight poured over her in a
warm flood. It was a perfect day in May.

Suddenly a curious thing happened. A small stone from nowhere fell with a
smart tap upon her uncovered head! She started, surprised into full
consciousness, and looked around. The shore stretched empty behind her.
There was no sign of life among the grass-grown cliffs, save where
Columbus some little distance away was digging industriously at the root
of a small bush. She searched the fringe of flaming gorse that overhung
the top of the cliff immediately behind her, but quite in vain. Some sea
gulls soared wailing overhead, but no other intruder appeared to disturb
the solitude. She gave up the search and lay down again. Perhaps the wind
had done it, though it did not seem very likely.

The tide was rising, and she would have to move soon in any case. She
would enjoy another ten minutes of her delicious sun-bath ere she
returned for the midday meal that Mrs. Rickett was preparing in the
little thatched cottage next to the forge.

Again she stretched herself luxuriously. Yes, it was better than London;
the soft splashing of waves was better than the laughter of a hundred
voices, better than the roar of a thousand wheels, better than the voice
of a million concerts ... Again reverie merged into drowsy absence of
thought. How exquisite the sunshine was!...

It fell upon her dark cheek this time with a sharp sting and bounced
off on to her hand--a round black stone dropped from nowhere but with
strangely accurate aim. She sprang up abruptly. This was getting
beyond a joke.

Columbus was still rooting beneath the distant bush. Most certainly he
was not the offender. Some boy was hiding somewhere among the humps and
clefts that constituted the rough surface of the cliff. She picked up her
walking-stick with a certain tightening of the lips. She would teach that
boy a lesson if she caught him unawares.

Grimly she set her face to the cliff and to the narrow, winding passage
by which she had descended to the shore. Her dreams were wholly
scattered! Her cheek still smarted from the blow. She left the sea
without a backward glance. She sent forth a shrill whistle to Columbus as
she began to climb the slippery path of stones. She was convinced that
it was from this that her assailant had gathered his weapons.

With springing steps she mounted, looking sharply to right and left as
she did so! And in a moment, turning inwards from the sea, she caught
sight of a movement among some straggling bushes a few yards to one side
of the path.

Without an instant's hesitation she swung herself up the steep
incline, climbing with a rapidity that swiftly cut off the landward
line of retreat. She would give her assailant a fright for his pains
if nothing better.

And then just as she reached the level, very sharply she stopped. It was
as if a hand had caught her back. For suddenly there rose up before her a
figure so strange that for a moment she felt almost like a scared child.
It sprang from the bushes and stood facing her like an animal at bay--a
short creature neither man nor boy, misshapen, grotesquely humped,
possessing long thin arms of almost baboon-like proportions. The head
was sunken into the shoulders. It was flung back and the face
upraised--and it was the face that made her pause, for it was the most
pathetic sight she had ever looked upon. It was the face of a lad of two
or three and twenty, but drawn in lines so painful, so hollowed, so
piteous, that fear melted into compassion at the sight. The dark eyes
that stared upwards had a frightened look mingled with a certain
defiance. He stood barefooted on the edge of the cliff, clenching and
unclenching his bony hands, with the air of a culprit awaiting sentence.

There was a decided pause before his victim spoke. She found some
difficulty in grappling with the situation, but she had no intention of
turning her back upon it. She felt it must be tackled with resolution.

After a moment she spoke, with as much sternness as she could muster,
"Why did you throw those stones?"

He backed at the sound of her voice, and she had an instant of sickening
fear, for there was a drop of twenty feet behind him on the shingle. But
he must have seen her look, for he stopped himself on the brink, and
stood there doggedly.

"Don't stand there!" she said quickly. "I'm not going to hurt you."

He lowered his head, and looked at her from under drawn brows. "Yes, you
are," he said gruffly. "You're going to beat me with that stick."

The shrewdness of this surmise struck her as not without humour. She
smiled, and, turning, flung the stick straight down to the path below.
"Now!" she said.

He came forward, not very willingly, and stood within a couple of yards
of her, still looking as if he expected some sort of chastisement.

She faced him, and the last of her fear departed. Though he was so
terribly deformed that he looked like some dreadful beast reared on its
hind legs there was that about the face, sullen though it was, that
stirred her deepest feelings.

She did her best to conceal the fact, however. "Tell me why you threw
those stones!" she said.

"Because I wanted to hit you," he returned with disconcerting
promptitude.

She looked at him steadily. "How very unkind of you!" she said.

His eyes gleamed with a smouldering resentment. "No, it wasn't. I didn't
want you there. Dicky is coming soon, and he likes it best when there is
no one there."

She noticed that though there was scant courtesy in his speech, it was by
no means the rough talk of the fisher-folk. It fired her curiosity. "And
who is Dicky?" she said.

"Who are you?" he retorted rudely.

She smiled again. "You are not very polite, are you? But I don't
mind telling you if you want to know. My name is Juliet Moore. Now
tell me yours!"

He looked at her doubtfully. "Juliet is a name out of a book," he said.

She laughed, a low, soft laugh that woke an answering glimmer of
amusement in his sullen face. "How clever of you to know that!" she said.

"No, I'm not clever." Tersely he contradicted her. "Old Swag at The Three
Tuns says I'm the village idiot."

"What a horrid old man!" she exclaimed almost involuntarily.

He nodded his heavy head. "Yes, I knocked him down the other day, and
kicked him for it. Dicky caned me afterwards,--I'm not supposed to go to
The Three Tuns--but I was glad I'd done it all the same."

"Well, who is Dicky?" she asked again. Her interest was growing.

He glared at her with sudden suspicion. "What do you want to know for?"

"Because I think he must be rather a brave man," she said.

The suspicion vanished. His eyes shown. "Oh, Dicky isn't afraid of
anything," he declared with pride. "He's my brother. He knows--heaps of
things. He's a man."

"You are fond of him," said Juliet, with her friendly smile.

The boy's face lighted up. "He's the only person I love in the world," he
said, "except Mrs. Rickett's baby."

"Mrs. Rickett's baby!" She checked a quick desire to laugh that caught
her unawares. "You are fond of babies then?"

"No, I'm not. I like dogs. I don't like babies--except Mrs. Rickett's
and he's such a jolly little cuss." He smiled over the words, and again
she felt a deep compassion. Somehow his face seemed almost sadder when
he smiled.

"I am staying with Mrs. Rickett," she said. "But I only came yesterday,
and I haven't made the baby's acquaintance yet. I must get myself
introduced. You haven't told me your name yet, you know. Mayn't I hear
what it is? I've told you mine."

He looked at her with renewed suspicion. "Hasn't anybody told you about
Me yet?" he said.

"No, of course not. Why, I don't know anybody except Mr. and Mrs.
Rickett. And it's much more interesting to hear it from yourself."

"Is it?" He hesitated a little longer, but was finally disarmed by the
kindness of her smile. "My name is Robin."

"Oh, that's a nice name," Juliet said. "And you live here? What do you
do all day?"

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I can mend fishing-nets, and I can help
Dicky in the garden. And I look after Mrs. Rickett's baby sometimes when
she's busy. What do you do?" suddenly resuming his attitude of suspicion.

She made a slight gesture of the hands. "Nothing at all worth doing, I am
afraid," she said. "I can't mend nets. I don't garden. And I've never
looked after a baby in my life."

He stared at her. "Where do you come from?" he asked curiously.

"From London." She met his curiosity with absolute candour. "And I'm
tired of it. I'm very tired of it. So I've come here for a change. I'm
going to like this much better."

"Better than London!" He gazed, incredulous.

"Oh, much better." Juliet spoke with absolute confidence. "Ah, here is
Columbus! He likes it better too."

She turned to greet her companion who now came hastening up to view the
new acquaintance.

He sniffed round Robin who bent awkwardly and laid a fondling hand upon
him. "I like your dog," he said.

"That's right," said Juliet kindly. "We are both staying at the
Ricketts', so when you come to see the baby, I hope you will come to see
us too. I must go now, or I shall be late for lunch. Good-bye!"

The boy lifted himself again with a slow, ungainly movement, and raised a
hand to his forehead in wholly unexpected salute.

She smiled and turned to depart, but he spoke again, arresting her.

"I say!"

She looked back. "Yes? What is it?"

He shuffled his bare feet in the grass in embarrassment and murmured
something she could not hear.

"What is it?" she said again, encouragingly, as if she were addressing a
shy child.

He lifted his dark eyes to hers in sudden appeal. "I say," he said, with
obvious effort, "if--if you meet Dicky, you--you won't tell him
about--about--"

She checked the struggling words with a very kindly gesture. "Oh, no, of
course not! I'm not that sort of person. But the next time you want to
get rid of me, just come and tell me so, and I'll go away at once."

The gentleness of her speech uttered in that soft slow voice of hers
had a curious effect upon her hearer. To her surprise, his eyes filled
with tears.

"I shan't want to get rid of you! You're kind! I like you!" he
blurted forth.

"Oh, thank you very much!" said Juliet, feeling oddly moved herself. "In
that case, we are friends. Good-bye! Come and see me soon!"

She smiled upon him, and departed, picking up her stick from the path
and turning to wave to him as she continued the ascent.

From the top of the cliff she looked back, and saw that he was
still standing--a squat, fantastic figure like a goblin out of a
fairy-tale--outlined against the shining sea behind him, a blot
upon the blue.

Again she waved to him and he lifted one of his long arms and saluted her
again in answer--stood at the salute till she turned away.

"Poor boy!" she murmured compassionately. "Poor ruined child! Columbus,
we must be kind to him."

And Columbus looked up with knowing little eyes and wagged a smiling
tail. He had taken to the lad himself.




CHAPTER II

SACRIFICE


"Lor' bless you!" said Mrs. Rickett. "There's some folks as thinks young
Robin is the plague of the neighbourhood, but there ain't no harm in the
lad if he's let alone. It's when them little varmints of village boys,
sets on to him and teases him as he ain't safe. But let him be, and he's
as quiet as a lamb. O' course if they great hulking fools on the shore
goes and takes him into The Three Tuns, you can't expect him to behave
respectable. But as I always says, let him alone and there's no vice in
him. Why, I've seen him go away into a corner and cry like a baby at a
sharp word from his brother Dick. He sets such store by him."

"I noticed that," said Juliet. "In fact he told me that Dicky and your
baby were the only two people in the world that he loved."

"Did he now? Well, did you ever?" Mrs. Rickett's weather-beaten
countenance softened as it were in spite of itself. "He always did take
to my Freddy, right from the very first. And Freddy's just the same. Soon
as ever he catches sight of Robin, he's all in a fever like to get to
him. Mr. Fielding from the Court, he were in here the other day and he
see 'em together. 'Your baby's got funny taste, Mrs. Rickett,' he says
and laughs. And I says to him, 'There's a many worse than poor young
Robin, sir,' I says. 'And in our own village too.' You see, Mr. Fielding
he's one of them gentlemen as likes to have the managing of other folks'
affairs and he's always been on to Dick to have poor Robin put away. But
Dick won't hear of it, and I don't blame him. For, as I say, there's no
harm in the lad if he's treated proper, and he'd break his heart if they
was to send him away. And he's that devoted to Dick too--well, there, it
fair makes me cry sometimes to see him. He'll sit and wait for him by the
hour together, like a dog he will."

"Was he born like that?" asked Juliet, as her informant paused for
breath.

Mrs. Rickett pursed her lips. "Well, you see, miss, he were a twin, and
he never did thrive from the very earliest. But he wasn't a hunchback,
not like he is now, at first. The poor mother died when they was born,
and p'raps it were a good thing, for she'd have grieved terrible if she
could have seen what he were a-going to grow into. For she was a lady
born and bred, married beneath her, you know. Nor she didn't have any
such life of it either. He were a sea-captain--a funny, Frenchy-looking
fellow with a frightful temper. He never come home for twelve years after
Dick were born. She used to teach at the village school, and make her
living that way. Very sweet in her ways she were. Everyone liked her.
There's them as says Mr. Fielding was in love with her. He didn't marry,
you know, till long after. She used to sing too, and such a pretty voice
she'd got. I used to think she was like an angel when I was a child. And
so she were. Whether she'd have married Mr. Fielding or not I don't know.
There's some as thinks she would. They were very friendly together. And
then, quite sudden-like, when everyone thought he'd been dead for years,
her husband come home again. I'll never forget it if I lives to be a
hundred. I was only a bit of a girl then. It's more'n twenty years ago,
you know, miss. I were just tidying up a bit in the school-house after
school were over, and she were looking at some copybooks, when suddenly
he marched in at the door, and, 'Hullo, Olive!' he says. She got up, and
she was as white as a sheet. She didn't say one word. And he just come up
to her, and took hold of her and kissed her and kissed her. It was horrid
to see him, fair turned me up," said Mrs. Rickett graphically. "And I'll
never forget her face when he let her go. She looked as if she'd had her
death blow. And so she had, miss. For she was never the same again. The
man was a beast, as anyone could see, and he hadn't improved in them
twelve years. He were a hard drinker, and he used to torment her to drink
with him, used to knock young Dick about too, something cruel. Dick were
only a lad of twelve, but he says to me once, 'I'll kill that man,' he
says. 'I'll kill him.' Mr. Fielding he went abroad as soon as the husband
turned up, and he didn't know what goings-on there were. There's some as
says she made him go, and I shouldn't wonder but what there was something
in it. For if ever any poor soul suffered martyrdom, it was that woman.
I'll never forget the change in her, never as long as I live. She kept up
for a long time, but she looked awful, and then at last when her time
drew near she broke down and used to cry and cry when anyone spoke to
her. O' course we all knew as she wouldn't get over it. Her spirit was
quite broke, and when the babies came she hadn't a chance. It happened
very quick at the last, and her husband weren't there. He were down at
The Three Tuns, and when they went to fetch him he laughed in their faces
and went on drinking. Oh, it was cruel." Mrs. Rickett wiped away some
indignant tears. "Not as she wanted him--never even mentioned his name.
She only asked for Dick, and he was with her just at the end. He was only
a lad of thirteen, miss, but he was a man grown from that night on. She
begged him to look after the babies, and he promised her he would. And
then she just lay holding his hand till she died. He seemed dazed-like
when they told him she were gone, and just went straight out without a
word. No one ever saw young Dick break down after that. He's got a will
like steel."

"And the horrible husband?" asked Juliet, now thoroughly interested in
Mrs. Rickett's favourite tragedy.

"I were coming to him," said Mrs. Rickett, with obvious relish. "The
husband stayed at The Three Tuns till closing time, then he went out
roaring drunk, took the cliff-path by mistake, and went over the cliff in
the dark. The tide was up, and he was drowned. And a great pity it didn't
happen a little bit sooner, says I! The nasty coarse hulking brute! I'd
have learned him a thing or two if he'd belonged to me." Again,
vindictively, Mrs. Rickett wiped her eyes. "Believe me, miss, there's no
martyrdom so bad as getting married to the wrong man. I've seen it once
and again, and I knows."

"I quite agree with you," said Juliet. "But tell me some more! Who took
the poor babies?"

"Oh, Mrs. Cross at the lodge took them. Mr. Fielding provided for 'em,
and he helped young Dick along too. He's been very good to them always.
He had young Jack trained, and now he's his chauffeur and making a very
good living. The worst of Jack is, he ain't over steady, got too much of
his father in him to please me. He's always after some girl--two or
three at a time sometimes. No harm in the lad, I daresay. But he's wild,
you know. Dick finds him rather a handful very often. Robin can't abide
him, which perhaps isn't much to be wondered at, seeing as it was mostly
Jack's fault that he is such a poor cripple. He was always sickly. It's
often the way with twins, you know. All the strength goes to one. But he
always had to do what Jack did as a little one, and Jack led him into all
sorts of mischief, till one day when they were about ten they went off
bird's-nesting along the cliffs High Shale Point way, and only Jack come
back late at night to say his brother had gone over the cliff. Dick tore
off with some of the chaps from the shore. It were dark and windy, and
they all said it was no use, but Dick insisted upon going down the face
of the cliff on a rope to find him. And find him at last he did on a
ledge about a hundred feet down. He was so badly hurt that he thought
he'd broke his back, and he didn't dare move him till morning, but just
stayed there with him all night long. Oh, it was a dreadful business." A
large tear splashed unchecked on to Mrs. Rickett's apron. "An ill-fated
family, as you might say. They got 'em up in the morning o' course, but
poor little Robin was very bad. He was on his back for nearly a year
after, and then, when he began to get about again, them humps came and he
grew crooked. Mr. Fielding were away at the time, hunting somewhere in
the wilds of Africa, and when he came home he were shocked to see the
lad. He had the very best doctors in the land to see him, but they all
said there was nothing to be done. The spine had got twisted, or
something of that nature, and he'd begun to have queer giddy fits too as
made 'em say the brain were affected, which it really weren't, miss, for
he's as sane as you or me, only simple you know, just a bit simple. They
said, all of 'em, as how he'd never live to grow up. He'd get them
abscies at the base of the skull, and they'd reach his brain and he'd go
raving mad and die. And the squire--that's Mr. Fielding--was all for
putting him away there and then. But Dick, he'd nursed him all through,
and he wouldn't hear of it. 'The boy's mine,' he says, 'and I'm going to
look after him.' Mr. Fielding was very cross with him, but that didn't
make no difference. You see, Dick had got fond of him, and as for Robin,
why, he just worshipped Dick. So there it was left, and Dick gave up all
his prospects to keep the boy with him. He were reading for the law, you
see, but he gave it all up and turned schoolmaster, so as he could live
here and take care of young Robin."

"Turned schoolmaster!" Juliet repeated the words. "He's something of a
scholar then!"

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Rickett. "It's only the village school, miss. Mr.
Fielding got him the post. They're an unruly set of varmints here, but he
keeps order among 'em. He's quite clever, as you might say, but no, he
ain't a scholard. He goes in for games, you know, football and the like,
tries to teach 'em to play like gentlemen, which he never will, for
they're a low lot, them shore people, and that dirty! Well, he makes 'em
bathe every day in the summer whether they likes it or whether they
don't. Oh, he does his best to civilize 'em, and all them fisher chaps
thinks a deal of him too. They've got a club in the village what Mr.
Fielding built for 'em, and he goes along there and gives 'em musical
evenings and jollies 'em generally. They'll do anything for him, bless
you. But he tells 'em off pretty straight sometimes. They'll take it from
him, you see, because they respects him."

"I thought the parson always did that sort of thing," said Juliet.

Mrs. Rickett uttered a brief, expressive snort. "He ain't much
use--except for the church. He's old, you see, and he don't understand
'em. And he's scared at them chaps what works the lead mines over at High
Shale. It's all in this parish, you know. And they are a horrid rough
lot, a deal worse than the fisher-folk. But Dick he don't mind 'em. And
he can do anything with 'em too, plays his banjo and sings and makes 'em
laugh. The mines belong to the Farringmore family, you know--Lord
Wilchester owns 'em. But he never comes near, and a' course the men gets
discontented and difficult. And they're a nasty drinking lot too. Why,
the manager--that's Mr. Ashcott--he's at his wit's end sometimes. But
Dick--oh, Dick can always handle 'em, knows 'em inside and out, and their
wives too. Yes, he's very clever is Dick. But he's thrown away in this
place. It's a pity, you know. If it weren't for Robin, it's my belief
that he'd be a great man. He's a born leader. But he's never had a
chance, and it don't look like as if he ever will now, poor fellow!"

Mrs. Rickett ended mournfully and picked up Juliet's empty plate.

"How old is he?" asked Juliet.

"Oh, he's a lot past thirty now, getting too old to turn his hand to
anything new. Mr. Fielding he's always on to him about it, but it don't
make no difference. He'll never take up any other work while Robin lives.
And Robin is stronger nor what he used to be, all thanks to Dick's care.
He's just sacrificed everything to that boy, you know. It don't seem
hardly right, do it?"

"I don't know," Juliet said slowly. "Some sacrifices are worth while."

Mrs. Rickett looked a little puzzled. There was something about
this young lodger of hers that she could not quite fathom, but
since she 'liked the looks of her' she did not regard this fact as
a serious drawback.

"Well, there's some folks as thinks one way and some another," she
conceded. "My husband always says as there's quite a lot of good in Robin
if he's treated decent. He's often round here at the forge. That's how he
come to get so fond of my Freddy. You ain't seen Freddy yet, miss. He's a
bit shy like with strangers, but he soon gets over it."

"You must bring him in to see me," said Juliet.

Mrs. Rickett beamed. "I will, miss, I will. I'll bring him in with the
pudding. P'raps if you was to give him a little bit he wouldn't be shy.
He's very fond of gingerbread pudding."

"I wish I were!" sighed Juliet, as her landlady's portly form
disappeared. "I shall certainly have to have a cigarette after it, and
then there will only be one left! Oh, dear, why was I brought up among
the flesh-pots?" She broke off with a sudden irresistible laugh, and
rising went to the window. Someone was sauntering down the road on the
other side of the high privet hedge. There came to her a whiff of
cigarette-smoke wafted on the sea-breeze. She leaned forth, and at the
gap by the gate caught a glimpse of a trim young man in blue serge
wearing a white linen hat. She scarcely saw his face as he passed, but
she had a fleeting vision of the cigarette.

"I wonder where you get them from," she murmured wistfully. "I believe I
could get to like that brand, and they can't be as expensive as mine."

The door opened behind her, and she turned back smiling to greet the
ginger pudding and Freddy.




CHAPTER III

MAGIC


The scent of the gorse in the evening dew was as incense offered to the
stars. To Juliet, wandering forth in the twilight after supper with
Columbus, the exquisite fragrance was almost intoxicating. It seemed to
drug the senses. She went along the path at the top of the cliff as one
in a dream.

The sea was like a dream-sea also, silver under the stars, barely
rippling against the shingle, immensely and mysteriously calm. She went
on and on, scarcely feeling the ground beneath her feet, moving through
an atmosphere of pure magic, all her pulses thrilling to the wonder of
the night.

Suddenly, from somewhere not far distant among the gorse bushes, there
came a sound. She stopped, and it seemed to her that all the world
stopped with her to hear the first soft trill of a nightingale through
the tender dusk. It went into silence, but it left her heart throbbing
strangely. Surely--surely there was magic all around her! That bird-voice
in the silence thrilled her through and through. She stood spell-bound,
waiting for the enchanted music to fill her soul. There followed a few
liquid notes, and then there came a far-off, flute-like call, gradually
swelling, gradually drawing nearer, so pure, so wild, so full of ecstasy,
that she almost felt as if it were more than she could bear. It broke at
last in a crystal shower of song, and she turned and looked out over the
glittering sea and asked herself if it could be real. It was as if a
spirit had called to her out of the summer night.

Then Columbus came careering along the path in fevered search of her, and
quite suddenly, like the closing of a lid, the magic sounds vanished into
a deep silence.

"Oh, Columbus!" his mistress murmured reproachfully. "You've stopped
the music!"

Columbus responded by planting his paws against her, and giving her a
vigorous push. There was decidedly more of common sense than poetry in
his composition. The passion for exploring which had earned him his name
was his main characteristic, and he wanted to get as far as possible
before the time arrived to turn back.

She yielded to his persuasion, and walked on up the path with her face to
the shimmering sea. For some reason she felt divinely happy, as if she
had drunk of the wine of the gods. It had been so wonderful--that song of
starlight and of Spring.

It was very warm, and she wore neither hat nor wrap. If she had come out
in a bathing-dress, no one would have known, she reflected. But in this
she was wrong, for presently, as she sauntered along, she became aware of
a faint scent other than the wonderful cocoa-nut perfume of the gorse
bushes--a scent that made her aware of the presence of another human
being in that magic place.

She looked about for him with a faint smile on her lips, but the
cliff-path ran empty before her, ascending in a series of fairly stiff
climbs to the brow of High Shale Point. Columbus hurried along ahead of
her as if he had made up his mind to reach the top at all costs. But
Juliet had no intention of mounting to the summit of the frowning cliff
that night. She had a vagrant desire to track that elusive scent, but
even that, it seemed was not to be satisfied, and at length she stopped
again and sent a summoning whistle after Columbus.

It was almost at the same moment that there came from behind her a sound
that shattered all the fairy romance of the night at a blow. She turned
sharply, and immediately, like a fiendish chorus, it came again spreading
and echoing along the cliffs--the yelling of drunken laughter.

Several men were coming along the path that she had travelled. She saw
them vaguely in the dimness a little way below her, and realized that her
retreat in that direction was cut off. Swiftly she considered the
position, for there was no time to be lost. To pursue the path would be
to go farther and farther away from the village and civilization, but for
the moment she saw no other course. On one hand the gorse bushes made a
practically impenetrable rampart, and on the other the cliff overhung the
shore which at that point was nearly two hundred feet below. From where
she stood, no way of escape presented itself, and she turned in despair
to follow the path a little farther. But as she did so, she heard another
wild shout from behind her, and it flashed upon her with a stab of dismay
that her light dress had betrayed her. She had been sighted by the
intruders, and they were pursuing her. She heard the stamp and scuffle of
running feet that were not too sure of their stability, and with the
sound something very like panic entered into Juliet. Her heart jolted
within her, and the impulse to flee like a hunted hare was for a second
almost too urgent to be withstood. That she did withstand it was a matter
for life-long thankfulness in her estimation. The temptation was great,
but she did not spring from the stock that runs away. She pulled herself
up sharply with burning cheeks, and deliberately turned and waited.

They came up the path, yelling like hounds on a scent, while she stood
perfectly erect and motionless, facing them. There were five of them,
hulking youths all inflamed by drink if not actually tipsy, and they came
around her with shouts of idiotic laughter and incoherent joking,
evidently taking her for a village girl.

She stood her ground with her back to the cliff-edge, not yielding an
inch, contempt in every line. "Will you kindly go your way," she said,
"and allow me to go mine?"

They responded with yells of derision, and one young man, emboldened by
the jeers of his companions, came close to her and leered into her face
of rigid disdain. "I'm damned if I won't have a kiss first!" he swore,
and flung a rough arm about her.

Juliet moved then with the fierce suddenness of a wild thing trapped. She
wrenched herself from him in furious disgust.

"You hound!" she began to say. But the word was never fully uttered, for
as it sprang to her lips, it went into a desperate cry. The ground had
given way beneath her feet, and she fell straight backwards over that
awful edge. For the fraction of an instant she saw the stars in the deep
blue sky above her, then, like the snap of a spring, they vanished into
darkness...

It was a darkness that spread and spread like an endless sea, submerging
all things. No light could penetrate it; only a few vague sounds and
impressions somehow filtered through. And then--how it happened she had
not the faintest notion--she was aware of someone lifting her out of the
depth that had received her, and there came again to her nostrils that
subtle aroma of cigarette-smoke that had mingled with the scent of the
gorse. She came to herself gasping, but for some reason she dared not
look up. That single glimpse of the wheeling universe seemed to have
sealed her vision.

Then a voice spoke. "I say, do open your eyes, if you don't mind! You're
really not dead. You've only had a tumble."

That voice awoke her quite effectually. The mixture of entreaty and
common sense it contained strangely stirred her curiosity. She opened her
eyes wide upon the speaker.

"Hullo!" she said faintly.

He was kneeling by her side, looking closely into her face, and the first
thing that struck her was the extreme brightness of his eyes. They shone
like black onyx.

He responded at once, his voice very low and rapid. "It's perfectly all
right. You needn't be afraid. I was just in time to catch you. There's an
easier way down close by, but you wouldn't see it in this light. Feeling
better now? Like to sit up?"

She awoke to the fact that she was propped against his knee. She sat up,
still gasping a little, but shrank as she realized the narrowness of the
ledge upon which she was resting.

He thrust out a protecting arm in front of her. "It's all right. You're
absolutely safe. Don't shiver like that! You couldn't go over if you
tried. Don't look if it makes you giddy!"

She looked again into his face, and again was struck by the amazing
keenness of his eyes.

"How did you get here?" she said.

"Oh, it's easy enough when you know the way. I was just coming to help
you when you came over. You didn't hear me shout?"

"No. They were all making such a horrid noise." She suppressed a shudder.
"Have they gone now?"

"Yes, the brutes! They scooted. I'm going after them directly."

"Oh, please don't!" she said hastily. "Not for the world! I don't want to
be left alone here. I've had enough of it."

She tried to smile with the words, but it was rather a trembling attempt.
He abandoned his intention at once.

"All right. It'll keep. Look here, shall I help you up? You'll feel
better on the top."

"I think I had better stay here for a minute," Juliet said. "I--I'm
afraid I shall make an idiot of myself if I don't."

"No, you won't. You'll be all right." He thrust an abrupt arm around her
shoulders, gripping them hard to still her trembling. "Lean against me!
I've got you quite safe."

She relaxed with a murmur of thanks. There was something intensely
reassuring about that firm grip. She sat quite motionless for a space
with closed eyes, gradually regaining her self-command.

In the end a snuffle and whine from above aroused her. She sat up
with a start.

"Oh, Columbus! Don't let him fall over!"

Her companion laughed a little. "Let's get back to him then! Don't look
down! Keep your face to the cliff! And remember I've got hold of you! You
can't fall."

She struggled blindly to her feet, helped by his arm behind her; but,
though she did not look down, she was seized immediately by an
overwhelming giddiness that made her totter back against him.

"I'm dreadfully sorry," she said, almost in tears. "I can't help it. I'm
an idiot."

He held her up with unfailing steadiness. "All right! All right!" he
said. "Don't get frightened! Move along slowly with me! Keep your face to
the cliff, and you'll come to some steps! That's the way! Yes, we've got
to get round that jutting-out bit. It's perfectly safe. Keep your head!
It's quite easy on the other side."

It might be perfectly safe for a practised climber, but Juliet's heart
was in her mouth when she reached the projecting corner of cliff where
the ledge narrowed to a bare eighteen inches and the rock bulged outwards
as if to push off all trespassers.

She came to a standstill, clinging desperately to the unyielding stone.
"I can't possibly do it," she said helplessly.

"Yes, you can. You've got to." Quick as lightning came the words. "Go on
and don't be silly! Of course you can do it! A child could."

He loosened her clutching fingers with the words, and pushed her onwards.
She went, driven by a force such as she had never encountered before.

She heard the soft wash of the sea far below her above the sickening
thudding of her heart as she crept forward round that terrible bend. She
heard with an acuteness that made her marvel the long sweet note of the
nightingale swelling among the bushes above. She also heard a watch
ticking with amazing loudness close to her ear, and was aware of a very
firm hand that grasped her shoulder, impelling her forward. There was no
resisting that steady pressure. She crept on step by step because she
could not do otherwise; and when she had rounded that awful corner at
last and would fain have stopped to rest after the ordeal, she found that
she must needs go on, for he would not suffer any pause.

He had followed her so closely that his hold upon her had never varied.
There seemed to her to be something electric in the very touch of his
fingers. She was fully conscious of the fact that she moved by a strength
outside her own.

"Go on!" he said. "Go on! There's Columbus waiting for you. Can you see
the steps? They're close here. They're a bit rough, I'm afraid. I made
them myself. But you'll manage them."

She came to the steps. The path had widened somewhat, and the dreadful
sense of sheer depth below her was less insistent. Nevertheless, the way
was far from easy, the steps being little more than deep notches in the
cliff. It slanted inwards here however, and she set herself to achieve
the ascent with more assurance.

Her guide came immediately behind her. She felt his hand touch her at
every step she took. Just at the last, realizing the nearness of the
summit and safety, she tried to hasten, and in a moment slipped. He
grabbed her instantly, but she could not recover her footing though she
made a frantic effort to do so. She sprawled against the cliff, clutching
madly at some tufts of grass and weed above her, while the man behind her
gripped and held her there.

"Don't struggle!" he said. "You're all right. You won't fall. Let go of
that stuff and hang on to me!"

"I can't!" she said. "I can't!"

"Let go of that stuff and hang on to me!" he said again, and the words
were short and sharp. "Left hand first! Put your arm round my neck, and
then get round and hang on with the other! It's only a few feet more. I
can manage it."

They were the most definite instructions she had ever received in her
life, and the most difficult to obey. She hung, clinging with both hands,
still vainly seeking a foothold, desperately afraid to relinquish her
hold and trust herself unreservedly to his single-handed strength. But,
as he waited, it came to her that it was the only thing to do. With a
gasp she freed one hand at length and reaching back as he held her she
thrust it over his shoulder.

"Now the other hand, please!" he said.

She did not know how she did it. It was like loosing her grip upon life
itself. Yet after a few seconds of torturing irresolution she obeyed him,
abandoning her last hold and hanging to him in palpitating apprehension.

He put forth his full strength then. She felt the strain of his
muscles as he gathered her up with one arm. With the other hand, had
she but known it, he was grasping only the naked rock. Yet he moved
as if absolutely sure of himself. He drew a deep hard breath, and
began to mount.

It was only a few feet to the top as he had said, but the climb seemed
to her unending. She was conscious throughout that his endurance was
being put to the utmost test, and only by the most complete passivity
could she help him.

But he never faltered, and finally--just when she had begun to wonder if
this awful nightmare of danger could ever cease--she found herself set
down upon the dewy grass that covered the top of the cliff. The scent of
the gorse bushes came again to her and the far sweet call of the
nightingale. And she realized that the danger was past and she was back
once more in the magic region of her summer dreams from which she had
been so rudely flung. She saw again the shimmering, wonderful sea and the
ever-brightening stars. One of them hung, a golden globe of light like a
beacon on the dim horizon.

Then Columbus came pushing and nuzzling against her, full of tender
enquiries and congratulations; and something that she did not fully
understand made her turn and clasp him closely with a sudden rush of
tears. The danger was over, all over. And never till this moment had she
realized how amazingly sweet was life.




CHAPTER IV

BROTHER DICK


She covered her emotion with the most herculean efforts at gaiety. She
laughed very shakily at the solicitude expressed by Columbus, and told
him tremulously how absurd and ridiculous he was to make such a fuss
about nothing.

After this, feeling a little better, she ventured a glance at her
companion. He was on his feet and wiping his forehead--a man of medium
height and no great breadth of shoulder, but evidently well knit and
athletic. Becoming by some means aware of her attention, he put away his
handkerchief and turned towards her. She saw his eyes gleam under black,
mobile brows that seemed to denote a considerable sense of humour. The
whole of his face held an astonishing amount of vitality, but the lips
were straight and rather hard, so clean-cut as to be almost ascetic. He
looked to her like a man who would suffer to the utmost, but never lose
his self-control. And she thought she read a pride more than ordinary in
the cast of his features--a man capable of practically anything save the
asking or receiving of favours.

Then he spoke, and curiously all criticism vanished. "I had better
introduce myself," he said. "I'm afraid I've been unpardonably rude. My
name is Green."

Green! The word darted at her like an imp of mischief. The romantic
dropped to the prosaic with a suddenness that provoked in her an almost
irresistible desire to laugh.

She controlled it swiftly, but she was fully aware that she had not
hidden it as she rose to her feet and offered her hand to her cavalier.

"How do you do, Mr. Green? My name is Moore--Miss Moore. Will you allow
me to thank you for saving my life?"

Her voice throbbed a little; tears and laughter were almost equally near
the surface at that moment. She was extremely disgusted with herself for
her lack of composure.

Then again, as his hand grasped hers, she forgot to criticize. "I say,
please don't!" he said. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything. It
was jolly plucky of you to stand your ground with those hooligans from
the mine."

"But I didn't stand my ground," she pointed out. "I went over. It was a
most undignified proceeding, wasn't it?"

"No, it wasn't," he declared. "You did it awfully well. I wish I'd been
nearer to you, but I couldn't possibly get up in time."

"Oh, I think you were more useful where you were," she said, "thank you
all the same. I must have gone clean to the bottom otherwise. I
thought I had."

She caught back an involuntary shudder, and in a moment the hand that
held hers closed unceremoniously and drew her further from the edge of
the cliff.

"You are sure you are none the worse, now?" he said. "Not giddy or
anything?"

"No, not anything," she said.

But she was glad of his hold none the less, and he seemed to know it, for
he kept her hand firmly clasped.

"You must let me see you back," he said. "Where are you staying?"

"At Mrs. Rickett's," she told him. "The village smithy, you know."

"I know," he said. "Down at Little Shale, you mean. You've come some way,
haven't you?"

"It was such a lovely night," she said, "and Columbus wanted a walk. I
got led on, I didn't know I was likely to meet anyone."

"It's the short cut to High Shale," he said. "There is always the chance
of meeting these fellows along here. You'd be safer going the other way."

"But I like the furze bushes and the nightingale," she said
regretfully, "and the exquisite wildness of it. It is not nearly so
nice the other way."

He laughed. "No, but it's safer. Come this way as much as you like in the
morning, but go the other way at night!"

He turned with the words, and began to lead her down the path. She went
with him as one who responds instinctively to a power unquestioned. The
magic of the night was closing about her again. She heard the voice of
the nightingale thrilling through the silence.

"This is the most wonderful place I have ever seen," she said at last in
a tone of awe.

"Is it?" he said.

His lack of enthusiasm surprised her. "Don't you think so too?" she said.
"Doesn't it seem wonderful to you?"

He glanced out to sea for a moment. "You see I live here," he said. "Yes,
it's quite a beautiful place. But it isn't always like this. It's
primitive. It can be savage. You wouldn't like it always."

"I'm thinking of settling down here all the same," said Juliet.

He stopped short in the path. "Are you really?"

She nodded with a smile. "You seem surprised. Why shouldn't I? Isn't
there room for one more?"

"Oh, plenty of room," he said, and walked on again as abruptly as he
had paused.

The path became wider and more level, and he relinquished her hand. "You
won't stay," he said with conviction.

"I wonder," said Juliet.

"Of course you won't!" A hint of vehemence crept into his speech. "When
the nightingales have left off singing, and the wild roses are over,
you'll go."

"You seem very sure of that," said Juliet.

"Yes, I am sure." He spoke uncompromisingly, almost contemptuously,
she thought.

"You evidently don't stay here because you like it," she said.

"My work is here," he returned noncommittally. She wondered a little, but
something held her back from pursuing the matter. She walked several
paces in silence. Then, "I wish I could find work here," she said, in her
slow deep voice. "It would do me a lot of good."

"Would it?" He turned towards her. "But that isn't what you came for--not
to find work, I mean?"

"Well, no--not primarily." She made the admission almost guiltily. "But I
think everyone ought to be able to earn a livelihood, don't you?"

"It's safer certainly," he said. "But it isn't everyone that is
qualified for it."

"No?" Her voice was whimsical. "And you think I shall seek in vain for
any suitable niche here?"

"It depends upon what your capabilities are," he said.

"My capabilities!" She laughed, a soft, low laugh. "Columbus! What are my
capabilities!"

They had reached a railing and a gate across the path leading down to
the village. Columbus, waiting to go through, wriggled in a manner that
expressed his entire ignorance on the subject. Juliet leaned against the
gate with her face to the western sky.

"My capabilities!" she mused. "Let me see! What can I do?" She looked at
her companion with a smile. "I am afraid I shall have to refer you to
Lady Joanna Farringmore. She can tell you--exactly."

He made a slight movement of surprise. "You know the Farringmore family?"

She raised her brows a little. "Yes. Do you?"

"By hearsay only. Lord Wilchester owns the High Shale Mines. I have never
met any of them." He spoke without enthusiasm.

"And never want to?" she suggested. "I quite understand. I am very tired
of them myself just now--most especially of Lady Joanna. But perhaps it
is rather bad taste to say so, as I have been brought up as her companion
from childhood."

"And now you have left her?" he said.

"Yes I have left her. I have disapproved of her for some time," Juliet
spoke thoughtfully. "She is very unconventional, you know. And I--well,
at heart I fancy I must be rather a prude. Anyhow, I disapproved, more
and more strongly, and at last I came away."

"That was rather brave of you," he commented.

"Oh, it wasn't much of a sacrifice. I've got a little money--enough to
keep me from starvation; but not enough to buy me cigarettes--at least
not the kind I like." Juliet's smile was one of friendly confidence. "I
think it's about my only real vice, and I've never been used to inferior
ones. Do you mind telling me where you get yours?"

He smiled back at her as he felt for his cigarette-case. "You had better
try one and make sure you like them before you get any."

"Oh, I know I should like them," she said, "thank you very much.
No, don't give me one! I feel as if I've begged for it. But just
tell me where you get them, and if they're not too expensive I'll
buy some to try."

He held the open cigarette-case in front of her. "Won't you honour me by
accepting one?" he said.

She hesitated, and then in a moment very charmingly she yielded. "Thank
you--Mr. Green. I seem to have accepted a good deal from you to-night.
Thank you very much."

He made her a slight bow. "It has been my privilege to serve you," he
said. "I hope I may have further opportunities of being of use. I can get
you these cigarettes at any time if you like them. But they are not
obtainable locally."

"Not!" Her face fell. "How disappointing!"

"Not from my point of view," he said. "There's no difficulty about it. I
can get them for you if you will allow me."

He struck a match for her, and kindled a cigarette for himself also.

Juliet inhaled a deep breath. "They are lovely," she said. "I knew I
should like them when you went past Mrs. Rickett's smoking one."

He looked at her with amusement. "When was that?"

"When I was waiting for that dreadful ginger pudding at lunch--I
mean dinner." She paused. "No, that's horrid of me. Please consider
it unsaid!"

"Why shouldn't you say it if you think it?" he asked.

"Because it's unkind. Mrs. Rickett is the soul of goodness. And I am
going to learn to like her ginger pudding--and her dumplings--and
everything that is hers."

"How heroic of you! I wonder if you will succeed."

"Of course I shall succeed," Juliet spoke with confidence as she turned
to pass through the gate. "I am going to cultivate a contented mind here.
And when I go back to Lady Jo--if I ever do--I shall be proof against
anything."

He reached forward to open the gate. "I think you will probably go back
long before the contented mind has begun to sprout," he said.

She laughed as she walked on down the path. "But it has begun already. I
haven't felt so cheerful for a long time."

"That isn't real contentment," he pointed out. "It's your spirit of
adventure enjoying itself. Wait till you begin to be bored!"

"How extremely analytical!" she remarked. "I am not going to be bored. My
spirit of adventure is not at all an enterprising one. I assure you I
didn't enjoy that tumble over the cliff in the least. I am a very quiet
person by nature." She began to laugh. "You must have noticed I wasn't
very intrepid in the face of danger. I seem to remember your telling me
not to be silly."

"I hoped you had forgiven and forgotten that," he said.

"Neither one nor the other," she answered, checking her mirth. "I think
you would have been absolutely justified in using even stronger language
under the circumstances. You wouldn't have saved me if you hadn't
been--very firm."

"Very brutal, you mean. No, I ought to have managed better. I will next
time." He spoke with a smile, but there was a hint of seriousness in
his words.

"When will that be?" said Juliet.

"I don't know. But I can make the way down much easier. The steps are a
simple matter, and I have often thought a charge of gunpowder would
improve that bit where the rock hangs over. If I hadn't wanted to keep
the place to myself I should have done it long ago. It certainly is
dangerous now to anyone who doesn't know."

Juliet came to a sudden halt in the path. "Oh, you are an engineer!" she
said. "I hope you will not spoil your favourite eyrie just because I may
some day fall over into it again. The chance is a very remote one, I
assure you. Now, please don't come any farther with me! It has only just
dawned on me that your way probably lies in the direction of the mines.
I shouldn't have let you come so far if I had realized it sooner."

He looked momentarily surprised. "But I do live in this direction," he
said. "In any case, I hope you will allow me to see you safely back."

"But there is no need," she protested. "We are practically there. Do you
really live this way?"

"Yes. Quite close to the worthy Mrs. Rickett too. I am not an engineer. I
am the village schoolmaster."

He announced the fact with absolute directness. It was Juliet's turn to
look surprised. She almost gasped.

"You--you!"

"Yes, I. Why not?" He met her look of astonishment with a smile. "Have I
given you a shock?"

She recovered herself with an answering smile. "No, of course not. I
might have guessed. I wonder I didn't."

"But how could you guess?" he questioned. "Have I the manners of a
pedagogue?"

"No," she said again. "No, of course not. Only--I have been hearing a
good deal about you to-day; not in your capacity of schoolmaster, but
as--Brother Dick."

"Ah!" he said sharply, and just for a moment she thought he was either
embarrassed or annoyed, but whatever the feeling he covered it instantly.
"You have talked to my brother Robin?"

"Yes," she said. "He is the only person I have talked to besides Mrs.
Rickett. We met on the shore."

"I hope he behaved himself," he said. "You weren't afraid of him, I
hope."

"No; poor lad! Why should I be?" Juliet spoke very gently, very
pitifully. "I have a feeling that Robin and I are going to be
friends," she said.

"You are very good," he said, in a low voice. "He hasn't many friends,
poor chap. But he's very faithful to those he's got. Most people are so
revolted by his appearance that they never get any farther. And he's shy
too--very naturally. How did he come to speak to you?"

She hesitated. "It was I who spoke first," she said, in a moment.

"Really! What made you do that?"

She hesitated again.

He looked at her with sudden attention. "He did something that made you
speak. What was it, please?"

His tone was peremptory, almost curt, Juliet hesitated no longer.

"Do you mind if I don't answer that question?" she said.

"He will tell me if you don't," he returned, with a certain hardness that
made her wonder if he were angered by her refusal.

"That wouldn't be fair of you," she said gently, "when I specially don't
want you to know."

"You don't want me to know?" he said.

"I should tell you myself if I did," she pointed out.

"I see." He reflected for a moment; then: "Will you promise to tell me if
he ever does it again?" he said.

Juliet laughed with a feeling of almost inordinate relief. "Yes,
certainly. I know he never will."

"Then that's the end of that," he said.

"Thank you," said Juliet.

They had reached the road that turned up to the village, and the light
from a large lamp some distance up the hill shone down upon them.

"That is where Mr. Fielding lives," said Green, as they walked towards
it. "Those are his lodge-gates. No doubt you have heard of him too. He is
the great man of the place. He owns it, in fact."

"Yes, I have heard of him," said Juliet. "Is he a nice man?"

He made an almost imperceptible movement of the shoulders. "I am very
much indebted to him," he said.

"I see," said Juliet.

They reached the cottage-gate that led to the blacksmith's humble abode,
and a smell of rank tobacco, floating forth, announced the fact that he
was smoking his pipe in the porch.

Juliet paused and held out her hand. "Good-bye!" she said.

His grasp was strong and very steady. "Good-bye," he said, "I hope you'll
find what you're looking for."

He stooped to pat Columbus, then opened the gate for her.

Instantly there was a stir in the porch as of some large animal awaking.
"That you, Mr. Green?" called a deep bass voice. "Come in! Come in!"

But Green remained outside. "Not to-night, thanks," he called back. "I've
got some work to do. Good-night!"

The gate closed behind her, and Juliet walked up the path with Columbus
trotting sedately by her side. She heard her escort's departing footsteps
as she went, and wondered when they would meet again.




CHAPTER V

THE GREAT MAN


The church at Little Shale was very ancient and picturesque. It stood
almost opposite to the lodge-gates of Shale Court, the abode of the great
Mr. Fielding. Two cracked bells hung in its crumbling square tower,
disturbing once a week the jackdaws that built in the ivy. Just once a
week ever since the Dark Ages, was Juliet's reflection as she dutifully
obeyed the somewhat querulous-sounding summons on the following day. She
could not picture their ringing for any bridal festivity, though it
seemed possible that they might sometimes toll for the dead.

Two incredibly old yew-trees mounted guard on each side of the gate and
another of immense size overhung the porch. The path was lined by
grave-stones that all looked as if they were tottering to a fall.

An old clergyman in a cassock that was brown with age hurried past her as
she walked up the path. She thought he matched his surroundings as he
disappeared at a trot round the corner of the church. Then from behind
her came the hoot of a motor-horn, and she glanced back to see a closed
car that glittered at every angle swoop through the open gates and swerve
round to the churchyard. She wanted to stop and see its occupants alight,
but decorum prompted her to pass on, and she entered the church, which
smelt of the mould of centuries, and paused inside.

It was a plain little place with plastered walls, and green glass
windows, and one large square pew under the pulpit. The other pews were
modern and very bare, occupied sparsely by villagers who all had their
faces turned over their shoulders and were craning to watch the door.

No one looked at her, however, and Juliet, after brief hesitation, sat
down in a chair close to the porch. The entrance of the Court party was
evidently something of an event, and she determined to get a good view.

Footsteps came up the path, and on the very verge of the porch a voice
spoke--a woman's voice, unmodulated, arrogant.

"Oh, really, Edward! I don't see why your village schoolmaster should be
asked to lunch every Sunday, however immaculate he may be. I object on
principle."

The words were scarcely uttered before the notes of the organ swelled
suddenly through the church. Juliet sent a quick look towards it, and saw
the black cropped head of the man in question as he sat at the
instrument. It occupied one side of the chancel and a crowd of village
children congregated in the side pews immediately outside and under the
eye of the organist. Juliet felt an indignant flush rise in her cheeks.
She was certain that that remark had been audible all over the church,
and she resented it with almost unreasonable vehemence.

Then with a sweep of feathers and laces the speaker entered, and
Juliet raised her eyes to regard her. She saw a young woman,
delicate-looking, with a pretty, insolent face and expensive clothes,
walk past, and was aware for a moment of a haughty stare that seemed
to question her right to be there. Then her own attention passed to
the man who entered in her wake.

He was tall, middle-aged, handsome in a somewhat ordinary style, but
Juliet thought his mouth wore the most unpleasant expression she had ever
seen. It was drawn down at the corners in a sneering curve, and a decided
frown knitted his brows. He walked with the suggestion of a swagger, as
if ready to challenge any who should dispute his right to the place and
everyone in it.

His wife entered the great square pew, but he strode on to the chancel,
tapped the organist unceremoniously on the shoulder and spoke to him.

Juliet watched the result with a curiosity she could not restrain. The
black head turned sharply. She caught a momentary glimpse of Green's
energetic profile as he spoke briefly and emphatically and immediately
returned to his instrument. The squire marched back to his pew still
frowning, and the voluntary continued. He played with assurance but
somewhat mechanically, and she presently realized that he was keeping a
sharp eye on the schoolchildren at the same time. The service was a
lengthy one and they needed supervision. They fidgeted and whispered
unceasingly. A lady whom she took to be the Vicar's daughter sat near
them, but it was quite obvious that she had no control over them. During
the sermon, which was a very sleepy affair, Green left the organ and went
and sat amongst them.

Then indeed a profound quiet reigned and Juliet became so drowsy that
it took her utmost resolution to stay awake. Most of the congregation
slept unrestrainedly. It was certainly a hot morning, and the service
very dull.

When it was over at last, she stepped out under the yew-trees and
wondered why she had not made her escape before. She was the first to
leave the church, and wandering down the path through the hot, chequered
sunlight she saw the shining car drawn up at the gate, and a young
chauffeur waiting at the door. She glanced at him as she passed, and was
surprised for a second to find him gazing at her with a curious
intentness. He lowered his eyes the moment they met hers, and she passed
on, wondering what there was about her to excite his interest.

Columbus was waiting with pathetic patience to be taken for a walk,
and overpoweringly hot though it was she had not the heart to keep him
any longer. But she could not face the full blaze of noon on the
shore, and she turned back up the shady church lane with a vague
memory of having seen a stile at the entrance of a wood somewhere
along its winding length.

The church-goers had dispersed by that time, but at the gate of the
schoolhouse which was a few yards above the church she saw a group of
boys waiting clamorously, and just as she found her stile she saw Green
come out dressed in flannels with a bath-towel round his neck. The boys
swarmed all about him like a crowd of excited puppies, and Juliet turned
into the wood with a smile. So he had refused the squire's invitation to
luncheon! She was very glad of that.

The green glades of the wood received her; she wandered forward with a
delightful sense of well-being. The thought of London came to her--the
heat and the dust and the fumes of petrol--the chattering crowds under
the parched trees--the kaleidoscopic glitter of fashion at its crudest
and most amazing. She knew exactly what they were all doing at that
precise moment. She visualized the shifting, restless feverish throng
with a vividness that embraced every detail. And she turned her face up
to the tree-tops and revelled in her solitude. Only last week she had
been in that seething whirlpool, borne helplessly hither and thither like
driftwood, caught here or flung there by any chance current. Only last
week she had felt the sudden drawing of the vortex, sucking her down
with appalling swiftness. Only last week! And to-day she was free. She
had awakened to the danger almost at the eleventh hour, and she had
escaped. Thank God she had escaped in time!

She suddenly wished that she had remembered to utter her thanksgiving
during that very monotonous service instead of going to sleep. But
somehow it seemed just as appropriate out here under the glorious
beeches. She sat down on a mossy root and drank in the sweetness with a
deep content. Columbus was busy trying to unearth a wood-louse that had
eluded him in a tuft of grass. She watched him lazily.

He persevered for a long time, till in fact the tuft of grass was
practically demolished, and then at last, failing in his quest, he
relinquished the search, and with a deep sigh lay down by her side.

She laid a caressing hand upon him, and ruffled his grizzled hair. "I'd
be lonely without you, Columbus," she said.

Columbus smiled at the compliment and snapped inconsequently at a fly. "I
wish we had brought some lunch with us," remarked his mistress. "Then we
needn't have gone back. Why didn't you think of it, Columbus?"

Columbus couldn't say really, but he wriggled his nose into the caressing
hand and gave her to understand that lunch really didn't matter. Then
very suddenly he extricated it again and uttered a growl that might have
risen from the heart of a lion.

Juliet looked up. Someone was coming along the winding path through the
wood. She grasped Columbus by the collar, for he had a disconcerting
habit of barking round the legs of intruders if not wholly satisfied as
to their respectability. The next moment a figure came in sight, and she
recognized the squire.

He was walking quickly, impatiently, flicking to and fro with a stick as
he came. The frown still drew his forehead, and she saw at a first glance
that he was annoyed.

He did not see her at first, not in fact until he was close upon her.
Then, as Columbus tactlessly repeated his growl, he started and his look
fell upon her.

Juliet had had no intention of speaking, but his eyes held so direct a
question that she found herself compelled to do so. "I hope we are not
trespassing," she said.

He put his hand to his hat with a jerk. "You are not, madam," he said. "I
am not so sure of the dog."

His voice was not unpleasant, but no smile accompanied his words. At
close quarters she saw that he was older than she had at first believed
him to be. He was well on in the fifties.

She drew Columbus nearer to her. "I won't let him hunt," she said.

"He will probably get shot if he does," remarked Mr. Fielding, and was
gone without further ceremony.

Juliet put her arms around her favourite and kissed him between his
pricked ears. "What a sweet man, Columbus!" she murmured. "I think we
must cultivate him, don't you?"

She wondered why he was going back towards the church lane at that hour,
for it was past one o'clock and time for her to be wending her own way
back to the village. She gave him ample opportunity to clear the wood,
however, before she moved. She was determined that she and Columbus would
be more discreet next time.

Mrs. Rickett's midday meal was fixed for half-past-one. She was not
looking forward to it with any great relish, for her prophetic soul
warned her that it would not be of a very dainty order, but not for
worlds would she have had the good woman know it. Besides, she had one
cigarette left!

She got up when she judged it safe, and began to walk back. But, nearing
the stile, the sound of voices made her pause. Two men were evidently
standing there, and she realized with something like dismay that the way
was blocked. She waited for a moment or two, then decided to put a bold
face on it and pursue her course. Mrs. Rickett's dinner certainly would
not improve by keeping.

She pressed on therefore, and as she drew nearer, she recognized the
squire's voice, raised on a note of irritation.

"Oh, don't be a fool, my good fellow! I shouldn't ask you if I didn't
really want you."

The answer came instantly, and though it sounded curt it had a ring
of humour. "Thank you, sir. And I shouldn't refuse if I really
wanted to come."

There was a second's silence; then the squire's voice again, loud and
explosive: "Confound you then! Do the other thing!"

It was at this point that Juliet rounded a curve in the path and came
within sight of the stile.

Green was standing facing her, and she saw his instant glance of
recognition. Mr. Fielding had his back to her, and the younger man laid a
hand upon his arm and drew him aside.

Fielding turned sharply. He looked her up and down with a resentful stare
as she mounted the stile, and Juliet flushed in spite of the most
determined composure.

Green came forward instantly and offered a hand to assist her. "Good
morning, Miss Moore! Exploring in another direction to-day?" he said.

She took the proffered hand, feeling absurdly embarrassed by the
squire's presence. Green was bareheaded, and his hair shone wet in the
strong sunlight. His manner was absolutely easy and assured. She met his
smiling look with an odd feeling of gratitude, as if he had ranged
himself on her side against something formidable.

"I am afraid I haven't been very fortunate in my choice to-day either,"
she said somewhat ruefully, as she descended.

He laughed. "We all trespass in these woods. It's a time-honoured custom,
isn't it, Mr. Fielding? The pheasants are quite used to it."

Juliet did not glance in the squire's direction. She felt that she had
done all that was necessary in that quarter, and that any further
overture would but meet with a churlish response.

But to her astonishment he took the initiative. "I am afraid I wasn't too
hospitable just now," he said. "It's this fellow's fault. Dick, it's up
to you to apologize on my behalf."

Juliet looked at him then in amazement, and saw that the dour visage was
actually smiling at her--such a smile as transformed it completely.

"If Miss Moore will permit me," said Mr. Green, with a bow, "I will
introduce you to her. You will then be _en rapport_ and in a position to
apologize for yourself."

"Pedagogue!" said the squire.

And Juliet laughed for the first time. "If anyone apologizes it should be
me," she said.

"I!" murmured Green. "With more apologies!"

The squire turned on him. "Green, I'll punch your head for you directly,
you unspeakable pedant! What should you take him for, Miss Moore? A very
high priest or a very low comedian?"

Juliet felt her breath somewhat taken away by this sudden admission to
intimacy. She looked at Green whose dark eyes laughed straight back at
her, and found it impossible to stand upon ceremony.

"I really don't know," she said. "I haven't had time to place him yet.
But it's a little difficult to be quite impartial as he saved my life
last night."

"What?" said the squire. "That sounds romantic. What made him do that?"

"Allow me!" interposed Green, pulling the bath-towel from his neck, and
rapidly winding it into a noose. "It happened yesterday evening. I was
having a quiet smoke in a favourite corner of mine on a ledge about
twenty feet down High Shale Cliff where it begins to get steep, when
Miss Moore, attracted by the scent of my cigarette,--that's right, isn't
it?"--he flung her an audacious challenge with uplifted brows--"when
Miss Moore attracted as I say, by the alluring scent of my cigarette,
fell over the edge and joined me. My gallantry consisted in detaining
her there, after this somewhat abrupt introduction, that's all. Oh yes,
and in bullying her afterwards to climb up again when she didn't want
to. I was an awful brute last night, wasn't I? Really, I think it's
uncommonly generous of you to have anything at all to say to me this
morning, Miss Moore."

"So do I," said Mr. Fielding. "If it were possible to treat such a
buffoon as you seriously, she wouldn't. I hope you are none the worse for
the adventure, Miss Moore."

"No, really I am not," said Juliet. "And I am still feeling very
grateful." She smiled at the squire. "Good-bye! I must be getting back to
Mrs. Rickett's or the dumplings will be cold."

She whistled Columbus to her and departed, still wondering at the
transformation which Green had wrought in the squire. It had not occurred
to her that there could be anything really pleasant hidden behind that
grim exterior. It was evident that the younger man knew how to hold his
own. And again she was glad, quite unreasonably glad, that he had stuck
to his refusal to lunch at the Court.




CHAPTER VI

THE VISITOR


"May I come and see you?" said Robin.

Juliet, seated under an apple-tree in the tiny orchard that ran beside
the road, looked up from her book and saw his thin face peering at her
through the hedge. She smiled at him very kindly from under her
flower-decked shelter.

"Of course!" she said. "Come in by all means!"

She expected him to go round to the gate, but he surprised her by going
down on all fours and crawling through a gap in the privet. He looked
like a monstrous baboon shuffling towards her. When through, he stood up
again, a shaggy lock of hair falling across his forehead, and looked at
her with eyes that seemed to burn in their deep hollows like distant
lamps at night.

He stopped, several paces from her. "Sure you don't mind me?" he said.

"Quite sure," said Juliet, with quiet sincerity. "I am very pleased to
see you. Wait while I fetch another chair!"

She would have risen with the words, but he stopped her with a gesture
almost violent. "No--no--no!" He nearly shouted the words. "Don't get up!
Don't go! I don't want a chair."

Juliet remained seated. "Just as you like," she said, smiling at him.
"But I don't think the grass is dry enough to sit on."

He looked contemptuous. "It won't hurt me. I hate chairs. I'll do
as I like."

But he still stood, glowering at her uncertainly near the hedge.

"Come along then!" said Juliet kindly. "Come and sit down near me! Why
not?"

He came slowly, and let himself down with awkward, lumbering movements by
her side. His face was darkly sullen. "I don't see any harm in it," he
grumbled, "if you don't mind."

"Of course I don't mind!" she said. "I am pleased. As you see, I have no
other visitors."

He lifted his heavy eyes to hers. "You'd pack me off fast enough
if you had."

"No, I shouldn't. Don't be silly, Robin!" She smiled down upon him. "You
are going to stay and have tea with me, aren't you?"

He smiled rather doubtfully in answer. "I'd like to. I don't know if I
can though."

"Why shouldn't you?" she questioned.

He folded his long arms about his knees, and murmured something
unintelligible.

Juliet looked at her watch. "Mrs. Rickett has promised to bring it in
another quarter-of-an-hour, and we will ask her to bring out Freddy too,
shall we? You'll like that."

The boy's face brightened a little. He did not speak for a moment or two;
then he reached forth a claw-like hand and tentatively fingered her
dress. "I don't want Freddy--when I've got you," he muttered.

"Oh, don't you? How kind!" said Juliet.

Again his dark eyes lifted. "It's you that's kind," he said. "I've never
seen anyone like you before." His brow clouded again as he looked at her.
"You're quite as much a lady as Mrs. Fielding," he said. "But you don't
call me a 'hideous abortion'."

"I should think not!" Juliet moved impulsively and laid her hand upon his
humped shoulder. "Don't listen to such things, Robin! Put them out of
your head! They are not true."

He rested his chin upon her hand, looking up at her dumbly. Her heart
stirred within her. The pathos of those eyes was more than she could meet
unmoved. Their protest made her think of an animal in pain.

"It doesn't do to take things too seriously, Robin," she said
gently. "There are people in the world who will say unkind things of
anybody. It's just because they are thoughtless generally. It
doesn't do to listen."

"No one ever said anything unkind about you," he said.

"Oh, didn't they?" Juliet smiled. "Do you know, Robin, I shouldn't wonder
if there are plenty of them saying unkind things about me this very
moment--that is, if they are thinking about me at all."

He glanced around him savagely. "Where? I'd like to hear 'em! I'd
kill 'em!"

"No--no!" said Juliet, restraining him. "And it's no one here either. But
you've got to realize that it doesn't really matter what people say.
They'll always talk, you know. Everyone does. It's the way of the world,
and we can't get away from it."

Robin looked unconvinced. "I'd kill anyone who said anything bad about
you anyway," he said.

"I don't think you ought to talk like that," said Juliet, in her
quiet way.

"Why not?" His eyes suddenly glowered again.

But she answered him with absolute calmness. "Because if you mean it,
it's wrong--very wrong. And if you don't mean it, it's just foolish."

"Oh!" said Robin. He edged himself nearer to her. "I like you," he said.
"Talk some more! I like your voice."

"What shall I talk about?" she asked.

"Tell me about London!" he said.

"Oh, London! My dear boy, you'd hate London. It's all noise and crowds
and dust. The streets are crammed with cars and people and there is never
any peace. It's like a great wheel that is never still."

"What do the people do?" he asked.

"They just tear about from morning till night, and very often from night
till morning. Everyone is always trying to be first and to be a little
smarter than anyone else. They think they enjoy it." Juliet drew a sudden
hard breath. "But they really don't. It's such a whirl, such a strain,
like always running at top speed in a race and never getting there. Yes,
it's just that--a sort of obstacle race, and the obstacles always getting
higher and higher and higher." She stopped and uttered a deep slow sigh.
"Well, I've done with it, Robin. I'm not going to get over any more. I've
dropped out. I'm going to grow old in comfort."

Robin was listening with deep interest. "Is that why you came here?"
he said.

"Yes. I was tired out and rather scared. I got away just in time--only
just in time."

Something in her voice, low though it was, made him draw nearer still,
massively, protectively.

"Are you hiding from someone?" he said.

"Oh, not exactly." She patted his shoulder gently. "No one would take the
trouble to come and look for me," she said. "They're all much too busy
with their own affairs."

His eyes sought hers again. "You're not frightened then any more?"

She smiled at him. "No, not a bit. I've got over that, and I'm beginning
to enjoy myself."

"Shall you stay here always?" he questioned.

"I don't know, Robin. I'm not going to look ahead. I'm just going to make
the best of the present. Don't you think that's the best way?"

He made a wry face. "I suppose it is--if you don't know what's coming."

"But no one knows that," said Juliet.

He glanced at her. His fingers, clasped about his knees, tugged
restlessly at each other. "I know what's going to happen to me," he said,
after a moment. "I'm going to get into a row--with Dicky."

"Oh, is that it?" said Juliet. "I knew there was something the matter."

He nodded, and suddenly she saw his chin quiver. "I hate a row with
Dicky," he said miserably.

Her heart went out to him, he looked so forlorn. "Why don't you go and
tell him you're sorry?" she said gently.

"Not--sorry," articulated Robin, with a sniff.

The matter presented difficulties. Juliet tried to hedge. "What have you
been doing?"

"Quarrelling," said Robin.

"What! With Dick?"

"No." Again he glanced at her, and wiped a hasty hand across his eyes.
"Dick!" he repeated, as if in derision at her colossal ignorance.

"Well, but who then?" she questioned. "That is--of course don't tell me
if you'd rather not!"

"Don't mind," said Robin. "I'll tell you anything. It was--Jack." He
suddenly turned to her fully with blazing eyes. "I--hate--Jack!" he said
very emphatically.

"Jack! But who is Jack? Oh, I remember!" Juliet abruptly recalled the
young chauffeur at the churchyard gate. "He is your other brother, isn't
he? I'd forgotten him."

"He's--a beast!" said Robin. "I hate him."

His look challenged reproof. Juliet wisely made none. "Isn't he kind to
you?" she said.

"It wasn't that!" blurted out Robin. "It--it--was what he
said--about--about--" He suddenly stopped, closed his lips and sat
savagely biting them.

"About what?" asked Juliet, bewildered.

Robin sat mute.

"I should forget it if I were you," she said sensibly. "People often do
and say things they don't mean. It doesn't pay to be too sensitive. Let's
forget it, shall we?"

"I can't," said Robin. "Dicky's angry." He paused, then continued with an
effort. "He said I wasn't to come here, said--said he'd punish me if I
did. He called me back, and I wouldn't go. He--" He suddenly broke off,
and crept close to her like a frightened dog--"he's coming now!" he
whispered.

The catch of the gate had clicked, and Columbus who had accepted Robin
without question, bustled forward to investigate.

He came back almost immediately, wearing a satisfied look, and as he
settled down again by Juliet's side, Green appeared on the path that led
to the apple-trees.

Robin pressed closer to Juliet. She could feel him trembling.
Instinctively she laid her hand upon him as Green drew near.

"Have you come to see me or to look for Robin?" she said.

Green's look was enigmatical. It comprehended them both at a single
glance. She wondered if he were really angry, but if so, he had himself
under complete control.

"I have brought you a box of cigarettes to go on with, Miss Moore," he
said, and produced his offering with a smile.

"How very kind of you!" said Juliet. She sat up with a quick flush of
embarrassment. "How did you manage to get them so soon? You must have had
them by you."

"I had," said Green. "But I can spare you these with pleasure. It's awful
to be without a smoke, isn't it?"

Juliet smiled. "These will last me for ages. I am being very economical
now. Please will you tell me how much they are?"

"Half-a-crown," he said.

"Oh, please!" she protested. "Let us be honest!"

"Exactly," he said. "It's all they cost me. I get them through a friend."

"But perhaps your friend wouldn't care for me to have them at that
price," objected Juliet.

"Yes, he would. It's all right," Green dismissed the matter with an
airiness that was curiously final. "Don't bother about paying me now,
please! I'd rather have it later. Robin, get up!"

He addressed his young brother so suddenly and so peremptorily that
Juliet was momentarily startled. Then very swiftly she intervened.

"Mr. Green, please, don't--be angry with Robin!"

His look flashed straight down to her. His eyes were still smiling, yet
very strangely they compelled her own. He stooped unexpectedly after an
instant's pause, lifted her hand with absolute gentleness away from the
quivering Robin, and laid it in her lap.

"Get up, old chap!" he said. "And don't be an ass!"

There was no questioning the kindness of his voice. Robin lifted his
head, stared a moment, then blundered to his feet. He stood awkwardly, as
if unwilling to go but expecting to be dismissed.

"He is staying to tea with me," said Juliet.

"Oh, I think not," Green said. "Another time--if you are kind enough.
Not to-day."

He spoke very decidedly. Robin, with his head hanging, turned away.

Green, with a brief gesture of farewell, turned to follow. But in that
moment Juliet spoke in that full rich voice of hers that was all the more
arresting because she did not raise it.

"Mr. Green, I want to speak to you."

He stopped at once. She thought she caught a glint of humour behind the
courteous attention of his eyes.

"Forgive me for interfering!" she said. "But I must say it."

"Pray do!" said Green.

Yet she found some difficulty in continuing. It would have been easier if
he had shown resentment, but quizzical tolerance was hard to meet.

She looked up at him doubtfully for a moment or two. Then, hesitatingly,
she spoke. "Please--don't--punish Robin for coming here!"

She saw his brows go up in surprise. He was about to speak, but she went
on with more than a touch of embarrassment. "Perhaps it sounds
impertinent, but I believe I could help him in some ways,--if I had the
chance. Anyhow, I should like to try. Please let him come and see me as
often as he likes!"

"Really!" said Green, and stopped. The amusement had wholly gone out of
his look. "I don't know what to say to you," he said in a moment. "You
are so awfully kind."

"No, I'm not indeed." Juliet's smile was oddly wistful. "I assure you I
am selfish to the core. But there's something about Robin that goes
straight to my heart. I should like to be kind to him--for my own sake.
So don't--please--try to keep him out of my way!"

She spoke very earnestly, her eyes under their straight brows, looking
directly into his,--honest eyes that no man could doubt.

Green stood facing her, his look as kind as her own. "Do you know, Miss
Moore," he said, "I think this is about the kindest thing that has ever
come into my experience?"

She made a slight gesture of protest. "Oh, but don't let us talk in
superlatives!" she said. "Fetch Robin back, and both of you stay to tea!"

He shook his head. "Not to-day. I am very sorry. But he doesn't deserve
it. He has been getting a bit out of hand lately. I can't pass it over."

Juliet leaned forward in her chair. Her eyes were suddenly very bright.
"This once, Mr. Green!" she said.

He stiffened a little. "No," he said.

"You won't?"

"I can't."

Juliet's look went beyond him to the figure of Robin leaning
disconsolately against a distant tree. She sat for several moments
watching him, and Green still stood before her as if waiting to be
dismissed.

"Poor boy!" she said softly at length, and turned again to the man in
front of her. "Are you sure you understand him?"

"Yes," said Green.

"And you are not hard on him? You are never hard on him?"

"I have got to keep him in order," he said.

"Yes, yes, I know. A man would say that." Juliet's face was very
pitiful. "Let him off sometimes!" she urged gently. "It won't do him
any harm."

Green smiled abruptly. "A woman would say that," he commented.

She smiled in answer. "Yes, I think any woman would. Don't be hard on
him, Mr. Green! He has been shedding tears over your wrath already."

"He came here in direct defiance of my orders," said Green.

"I know. He told me. Please never give him such orders again!"

"You are awfully kind," Green said again. "But really in this case, there
was sufficient reason. Some people--most people--prefer him at a
distance."

"I am not one of them," Juliet said.

"I see you are not. But I couldn't risk it. Besides, he was in a towering
rage when he started. It isn't fair to inflict him on people--even on
anyone as kind as yourself--in that state."

"I should never be afraid of him," Juliet said quietly. "I think I
know--partly--what was the matter. Someone made a rather cruel remark
about him, and someone else maliciously repeated it. Then he was
angry--very angry--and lost his self-control, and I suppose more cruel
things were said. And then he came here--he asked me--he actually asked
me--if I was sure I didn't mind him!"

A deep light was shining in her eyes as she ended, and an answering gleam
came into Green's as he met them.

"I know," he said, in a low voice. "It's infernally hard for him, poor
chap! But it doesn't do to let him know we think so. As long as he lives,
he's got to bear his burden."

"But it needn't be made heavier than it is," Juliet said. "No, it
needn't. But it isn't everyone that sees it in that light. I'm glad you
do anyway, and I'm grateful--on Robin's behalf. Good-bye!"

He lifted his hand again in a farewell salute, and turned away.

Juliet watched him go, watched keenly as he approached Robin, saw the
boy's quick glance at him as he took him by the arm and led him to the
gate. A few seconds later they passed her on the other side of the
hedge evidently on their way to the shore, and she heard Robin's voice
as they went by.

"I'm--sorry now, Dicky," he said.

She turned her head to catch his brother's answer, for it did not come
immediately and she wondered a little at the delay.

Then, as they drew farther away, she heard Green say, "Why do you
say that?"

"She told me to," said Robin.

She felt her colour rise and heard Green laugh. They were almost out of
earshot before he said, "All right, boy! I'll let you off this time.
Don't do it again!"

She leaned back in her chair, and re-opened her book. But she did not
read for some time. Somehow she felt glad--quite unreasonably glad
again--that Robin had been let off.




CHAPTER VII

THE OFFER


"Well, it ain't none of my business," said Mrs. Rickett, with a sniff.
"Nor it ain't yours either. But did you ever know anyone as wore anything
the likes of that before?"

She shook out for her husband's inspection a filmy garment that had the
look of a baby's robe that had grown up, before spreading it on her
kitchen table to iron.

"Ah!" said Rickett, ramming a finger into the bowl of his pipe. "What
sort of a thing is that now?"

"What sort of a thing, man? Why, a night-dress--of course! What d'you
think?" Mrs. Rickett chuckled at his ignorance. "And that flimsy--why I'm
almost afraid to touch it. It's the quality, you see."

"Ah!" said the smith vaguely.

Mrs. Rickett tested the iron near her cheek. "And it's only the quality,"
she resumed, as she began to use it, "as wears such things as these. Why,
I shouldn't wonder but what they came from Paris. They must have cost a
mint of money."

"Ah!" said Rickett again.

"She's as nice-spoken a young lady as I've met," resumed his wife. "No
pride about her, you know. She's just simple and friendly-like. Yet I'd
like to see the man as'd take a liberty with her all the same."

Rickett pulled at his pipe with a grunt. When not at work, it was
usually his rôle to sit and listen to his wife's chatter.

"She ain't been brought up in a convent," continued Mrs. Rickett.
"That's plain to see. With all the gentle ways of her, she knows how to
hold her own. Young Robin Green, he's gone just plumb moon-crazy over
her, and it wouldn't surprise me"--Mrs. Rickett lowered her voice
mysteriously--"but what some day Dick himself was to do the same."

"Ah!" said the smith.

"She's so taking, you know," said Mrs. Rickett, as if in extenuation of
this outrageous surmise. "And there isn't anyone good enough for him
about here. Of course there's the infant teacher--that Jarvis girl--she'd
set her cap at him if she dared. But he wouldn't look at her. Young
Jack's a deal more likely, if ever he does settle down--which I doubt.
But Dick--he's different. He's--why if that ain't Mr. Fielding a-riding
up the path! What ever do he want at this time of night? Go and see,
George, do!"

George lumbered to his feet obediently. "Happen he's come to call on our
young lady," he ventured, with a slow grin.

"Well, don't bring him in here!" commanded his wife. "Take him into the
front room, while I put on a clean apron!" She hastened to shut the door
upon her husband, then paused, listening intently, as Mr. Fielding's
riding-whip rapped smartly on the door.

"Happen it is only the young lady he's after," she said to herself.

It was. In a moment, Mr. Fielding's voice, superior, slightly over
bearing, made itself heard. "Good evening, Rickett! I think Miss Moore is
lodging here. Is she in?"

"Good evening, sir!" said Rickett, and waited a moment for reflection.
"She was in, but I can't say but what she may have gone out again with
the dog."

"Well, find out, will you!" said Mr. Fielding. "Wait a minute! You'd
better take my card."

Mrs. Rickett returned to her ironing. "What ever he be come for?"
she murmured.

The squires' horse stamped on the tiled path. It was eight o'clock, and
he wanted to get home to his supper. The squire growled at him
inarticulately, and there fell a silence.

The evening light spread golden over the apple-trees in the orchard.
Someone was wandering among the falling blossoms. He heard a low voice
softly singing. He flung his leg over his horse's back abruptly and
dropped to the ground.

The voice stopped immediately. The squire fastened his animal to the
porch and turned. The next moment Columbus burst barking through the
intervening hedge.

"Columbus! Columbus!" called Juliet's voice. "Come back at once!"

"May I come through?" said Mr. Fielding.

She arrived at the orchard-gate, flushed and apologetic. "Oh, pray do!
Please excuse Columbus! He always speaks before he thinks."

She opened the gate with the words, and held out her hand.

She was aware of his eyes looking at her very searchingly as he took it.
"I hope you don't mind a visitor at this hour," he said.

She smiled. "No. I am quite at liberty. Come and sit down!"

She led the way to a bench under the apple-trees, and the squire tramped
after her with jingling spurs.

"I'm afraid you'll think me very unconventional," he said, speaking with
a sort of arrogant humility as she stopped.

"I like unconventional people best," said Juliet.

He dropped down on the seat. "Oh, do you? Then I needn't apologize any
further. You've been here about a week, haven't you?"

"Yes," said Juliet.

His look dwelt upon the simple linen dress she wore. "You came
from London?"

"Yes," she said again.

He began to frown and to pull restlessly at the lash of his riding-whip.
"Do you think me impertinent for asking you questions?" he said.

"Not so far," said Juliet.

He uttered a brief laugh. "You're cautious. Listen, Miss Moore! I don't
care a--I mean, it's nothing whatever to me where you've come from or
why. What I really came to ask is--do you want a job?"

Juliet stiffened a little involuntarily. "What sort of a job?" she said.

His fingers tugged more and more vigorously at the leather. She realized
quite suddenly that he was embarrassed, and at once her own
embarrassment passed.

"Have you come to offer me a job?" she said. "How kind of you to
think of it!"

"You don't know what it is yet," said Fielding, biting uncomfortably at
his black moustache. "It may not appeal to you. Quite probably it won't.
You've been a companion before--so Green tells me."

"Oh!" Juliet's straight brows gathered slightly. "Did Mr. Green tell you
I was wanting a job?"

"No, he didn't. Green sticks to his own business and nothing will turn
him from it." The squire suddenly lashed with his whip at the grass in
front of him, causing Columbus to jump violently and turn a resentful eye
upon him. "I'll tell you what passed if you want to know."

"Thank you," said Juliet simply.

She leaned forward after a moment and pulled Columbus to her side;
fondling his pricked ears reassuringly.

"It was on Sunday," said Fielding. "My wife saw you in church. She took
rather a fancy to you. I hope you don't object?"

"Why should I?" said Juliet.

"Exactly. Why should you? Well, after Green's introduction, when you had
gone, I asked him if he knew anything about you. He said he had only made
your acquaintance the day before, that you had told him that you had held
the post of companion to someone, he didn't say who. And I wondered if
possibly you might feel inclined to see how you got on with my wife in
that capacity. She is not strong. She wants a companion."

Juliet's grey eyes gazed steadily before her as she listened. The evening
light shone on her brown head, showing streaks of gold here and there.
Her attitude was one of grave attention.

As he ended, she turned towards him, still caressing the dog at her feet.

"Wouldn't it be better," she said, "if Mrs. Fielding knew me before
offering me such a post?"

The squire smiled at her abruptly. "No, I don't think so. It wouldn't be
worth while unless you mean to consider it."

"Is that her point of view?" asked Juliet.

"No; it's mine. If she gets to know you and sets her heart on having you,
and then you go and disappoint her--I shall be the sufferer," explained
Fielding, with another cut at the grass in front of him.

It was Juliet's turn to smile. "But I can't--possibly--decide until we
have met, can I?" she said.

"Does that mean you'll consider it?" asked the squire.

"I am considering it," said Juliet. "But please give me time! For I have
only just begun."

"That's fair," he conceded. "How long will it take you?"

She began to laugh. There was something almost boyishly naive about him,
notwithstanding his obvious bad temper. "You haven't told me any details
yet," she said.

"Oh, you mean money," he said. "I leave that to you. You can name your
own terms."

"Thank you," said Juliet again. "That would naturally appeal to me
very much. But as a matter of fact, I was not referring to money at
that moment."

He gave her a keen look. "I didn't mean to offend you. Are you offended?"

She met his eyes quite squarely. "On second thoughts--no!"

"Why second thoughts?" he demanded.

Her colour rose faintly. "Because I think second thoughts are--kinder."

Fielding turned suddenly crimson. "So I'm a cad and a bounder, am I?" he
said furiously.

Juliet's eyes contemplated him without a hint of dismay. There was even
behind their serenity the faint glint of a smile. "I think that is
putting it rather strongly," she said. "But I really don't know you yet.
I am not in a position to judge--even if I wished to do so."

Fielding sat for a moment or two quite rigid, as if on the verge of
springing to his feet and leaving her. Then with amazing suddenness he
broke into a laugh, and the tension was past.

"By Jove, I like you for that!" he said. "You did it jolly well. You've
got pluck, and you know how to keep your temper. You'll have to forgive
me, Miss Moore. We're going to be friends after this."

There was something very winning about this overture, and Juliet was not
proof against it. He was evidently of those who consider that an apology
condones any offence, and, though she was far from agreeing with him on
this point, it was not in her to be churlish.

She smiled at him without speaking.

"Sure you're not angry with me?" urged the Squire.

She nodded. "Yes, quite sure. Won't you go on where you left off?"

"Where did I leave off?" He frowned. "Oh yes, you asked for details.
Well, what do you want to know? My wife always breakfasts in bed, so she
wouldn't want you before ten. But you'd live with us of course. I'd see
that they made you comfortable."

"If my duties did not begin before ten, there would be no need for that,"
pointed out Juliet.

He looked at her in surprise. "Of course you'd live with us! You can't
want to stay here!"

"But why not?" said Juliet. "They are very kind to me. I am very
happy here."

"Oh, nonsense!" said the squire. "You couldn't do that. I believe you're
afraid I want to make a slave of you."

"No, I am not afraid of that," said Juliet. "But go on, if you don't
mind! What happens after ten o'clock?"

"Well, she opens her letters," said the squire. "Tells you what wants
answering and how to answer it. P'raps you read the papers to her for a
bit before she gets up, and so on."

"Does that take the whole morning?" asked Juliet.

"No. She's down about twelve. Sometimes she goes for a ride then, if she
feels like it. Or she walks about the grounds, or drives out in the
dog-cart. She's very keen on horses. Then either she goes out to lunch
or someone lunches with us. And after that she's off in the car for a
fifty-mile run--or a hundred if the mood takes her. She's never
quiet--except when she's in bed. That's what I want you for. I want you
to keep her quiet."

"Oh!" said Juliet.

This was shedding a new light upon the matter. She looked at him somewhat
dubiously.

"Come! I know you can," he said. "You've been through the treadmill. You
know all about it and it doesn't attract you. This infernal chase after
excitement--it's like a spreading fever. There's no peace for anyone
now-a-days. I want you to stop it. You've got that sort of influence. I
sensed it directly I saw you. You've got that priceless possession--a
quiet spirit. She wouldn't go tearing over the country racing and
gambling and then card-playing far into the night if you were there to
pull her up. She'd be ashamed--with anyone like you looking on."

"Would she?" said Juliet. "I wonder. And how do you know that that sort
of thing doesn't attract me?"

"Of course I know it. You carry it in your face. You're a woman--not a
dancing marionette. You wouldn't despise a woman's duties because they
interfered with pleasure. You were made in a different mould. Anyone can
see that."

Juliet was smiling a little. "I can't claim to be anything very great,"
she said. "But certainly, I was never very fond of cards."

"Of course you weren't. You've too much sense to do anything to excess.
Now look here, Miss Moore! You're coming, aren't you? You'll give the
thing a trial. I promise you, you shan't be bullied or overworked. It's
such an opportunity, for my wife really has taken a fancy to you. And she
can be quite decent to anyone when she likes. You can bring the dog
along," continued the squire. "You can have your own sitting-room--your
own maid, if you want one. You can come and go as you choose. No one
will interfere with you. All I want you to do is to put the brake on my
wife, make her take an interest in her home, make her take life
seriously. She's not at all strong. She doesn't give herself a chance.
Unless I fetch in a doctor and practically keep her in bed by main force
she never gets any decent rest. Why, she's hardly ever in her room before
two in the morning. It's almost a form of madness with her, this
ceaseless round. I can't prevent it. I'm a busy man myself." He suddenly
got to his feet with a jerk and stood looking down at her with sombre
eyes. "I'm a busy man," he repeated. "I have my ambitions, and I work for
them. I work hard. But the one thing I want more than anything else on
earth is a son to succeed me. And if I can't have that--there's nothing
else that counts."

He spoke with bitter vehemence, beating restlessly against his heel with
his whip. But Juliet still sat silent, looking out before her at the
golden pink of the apple-trees in the sunset light with grave quiet eyes.

He went on morosely, egotistically, "I don't know what I've done that I
shouldn't have what practically every labourer on my estate has got. I
may not have been absolutely impeccable in my youth. I've never yet met a
man who was--with the single exception of Dick Green who hasn't much
temptation to be anything else. But I've lived straight on the whole.
I've played the game--or tried to. And yet--after five years of
marriage--I'm still without an heir, and likely to remain so, as far as I
can see. She says I'm mad on that point." He spoke resentfully. "But
after all, it's what I married for. I don't see why I should be cheated
out of the one thing I want most, do you?"

Juliet's eyes came up to his, slowly, somewhat reluctantly. "I'm afraid I
haven't much sympathy with you," she said.

"You haven't?" he looked amazed.

"No." She paused a moment. "It was a pity you told me. You see, a woman
doesn't care to be married--just for that."

"And what do you suppose she married me for?" he demanded indignantly.
"Do you think she was in love with me--a man thirty years older than
herself? Oh, I assure you, there were never any illusions on that score!
I had a good deal to offer her, and she jumped at it."

Juliet gave a slight shiver, and abruptly his manner changed.

"I'm sorry. Put my foot in it again, have I? You'll have to forgive me,
please. No, I shouldn't have told you. But you've got such a kind look
about you--as if you'd understand."

She was touched in spite of herself. She got up quickly and faced him.
"What I can't understand," she said, a ring of deep feeling in her
voice, "is how anyone can possibly barter their happiness, their
self-respect, all that is most worth having, for this world's goods,
this world's ambitions, and expect to come out of it anything but
losers. Oh, I know it's done every day. People fight and scramble--yes,
and grovel in the mud--for what they think is gold; and when they've got
it, it's only the basest alloy. Some of them never find it out. Others
do--and break their hearts."

He stared at her. "You speak as one who knows."

"I do know," she said. "Since I've been here, had time to think, I've
realized it more and more. This dreadful fight for front places, for
prosperity--this rooted, individual selfishness--the hopeless materialism
of it all--the ultimate ruin--." She broke off. "You'll take me for a
street ranter if I go on. But it's rather piteous to see people straining
and agonizing after what, after all, can never bring them any comfort."

"But that's just what I was saying," he protested.

Her frank eyes looked straight into his. "But you're doing it yourself
all the same," she said. "You're playing for your own hand all the time
and so you're a loser and always will be. It's the chief rule of the
game." She smiled faintly. "Please forgive me for telling you so, but
I've only just found it out for myself; so I had to tell someone."

"You're rather a wonderful young woman," said the squire, still staring.

She shook her head. "Oh, no, I'm not. I've just begun to use my brains,
that's all. They're nothing at all out of the ordinary, really."

He laughed. "Well, you've given me a pretty straight one anyway. Have you
got a home anywhere--any home people?"

"None that count," said Juliet.

"Been more or less of a looker-on all your life, eh?" he suggested.

"More or less," smiled Juliet.

He held out his hand to her abruptly. "Look here! You're coming,
aren't you?"

"I don't know," said Juliet.

"Well, make up your mind quick!" He held her hand, looking at her.
"What's the objection? Tell me?"

She freed her hand gently but with decision. "I can't tell you entirely.
You must let me think. For one thing, I want more freedom of action than
I should have as an inmate of your house. I want to come and go as I
like. I've never really done that before, and I'm just beginning to
enjoy it."

"That's a selfish reason," said the squire, with a sudden boyish
grin at her.

She coloured slightly. "No, it isn't--or not wholly."

"All right, it isn't. I unsay it. But that reason won't exist as far as
you are concerned. You will come and go exactly as you like always. No
one will question you."

"You're very kind," said Juliet.

He bowed to her ceremoniously. "That's the first really nice thing you
have said to me. I must make a note of it. Now would you like my wife to
call upon you? If so, I'll send her round to-morrow at twelve."

"If she would care to come," said Juliet.

"Of course she would. She shall come then--and you'll talk things over,
and come to an understanding. That's settled, is it? Good-bye!"

He turned to go, pausing at the gate to throw her another smiling
farewell. She had not thought that gloomy, black browed countenance could
look so genial. There was something curiously elusive, almost haunting,
about his smile.

"Columbus!" said Juliet. "I'm not sure that he's a very nice man, but
there's something about him--something I can't quite place--that makes me
wonder if I've met him somewhere before. Would you like to go and live at
the Court, Columbus?"

Columbus leaned against her knee in sentimental silence. He evidently did
not care where he went so long as he was with the object of his
whole-souled devotion.

She stooped and kissed him between the eyes. "Dear doggie!" she murmured.
"I wonder--are we happier--here?"




CHAPTER VIII

MRS. FIELDING


When the great high-powered car from Shale Court stopped at the gate of
the blacksmith's cottage on the following morning Mrs. Rickett, who was
feeding her young chicks in the yard outside the forge, was thrown into a
state of wild agitation. Everyone in Little Shale stood in awe of the
squire's wife.

She went nervously to enquire what was wanted, and met the chauffeur
at the gate.

"It's all right, Mrs. Rickett. Don't fluster yourself!" he said. "It's
Miss Moore we're after. Go and tell her, will you?"

Mrs. Rickett looked at the bold-eyed young man with disfavour.
"Well, you're not expecting her to come out to you, are you?" she
retorted tartly.

He smiled. "Yes, I rather think we are, Mrs. Fielding doesn't want to get
out. Where is she?"

Mrs. Rickett drew in her breath. "But Miss Moore is a lady born!" she
objected. "Haven't you got a card I can take her?"

Mrs. Rickett had lived among the gentry in her maiden days, and, as she
was wont to assert, she knew what was what as well as anybody. She had,
moreover, a vigorous dislike for young Jack Green the chauffeur who,
notwithstanding his airs,--perhaps because of them,--occupied a much
lower plane in her estimation than his brother the schoolmaster. But
Jack was one of those people whom it is practically impossible to snub.
He merely continued to smile.

"Well, you'd better let me go and find her if you won't," he said, "or
madam will be getting impatient."

It was at this point that Juliet came upon the scene, walking up from the
shore with her hair blowing in the breeze. She carried a towel and a
bathing dress on her arm. Columbus trotted beside her, full of cheery
self-importance.

She quickened her pace somewhat at sight of the car, and its occupant
leaned forward with an imperious motion of the hand. Her pale face
gleamed behind her veil.

"Miss Moore, I believe?" she said, in her slightly insolent tones.

Juliet came to the side of the car. The sun beat down upon her uncovered
head. She smiled a welcome.

"How do you do? How kind of you to come and see me! I am sorry I wasn't
here to receive you, but it was so glorious down on the shore that I
stayed to dry my hair. Do come in!"

"Oh, I can't--really!" protested Mrs. Fielding. "I shall die if I don't
get a little air. I thought perhaps you would like to come for a little
spin with me. But I suppose that is out of the question."

"My hair is quite dry," said Juliet. "It won't take me long to put it up.
I should like to come with you very much."

"I can't wait," said Mrs. Fielding plaintively. "This heat is so
fearful--and the glare! I will go for a short round, and come back for
you if you like."

"Thank you," said Juliet. "I can be ready in five minutes."

"I should be grilled by that time," declared Mrs. Fielding. "Jack, we
will go round by the station and back by the church. It is only three
miles. We can do that easily. In five minutes then, Miss Moore!"

"Look out for the schoolchildren!" exclaimed Juliet almost
involuntarily. "They are sure to be all over the road."

"Oh, really!" said Mrs. Fielding, sinking back into the car, as it
swooped away.

Juliet and Mrs. Rickett looked at one another.

"That young Jack Green fair riles me," remarked the latter. "I can't
abide him. He's not a patch on his brother, and never will be. It's
funny, you know, how members of a family vary. Now you couldn't have a
more courteous and pleasant spoken gentleman than Dick. But this Jack,
why, he hasn't even the beginnings of a gentleman in him."

Juliet's thoughts were more occupied with Mrs. Fielding at the moment,
but she kept them to herself. "I may be late back, Mrs. Rickett," she
said. "Let me have a cold lunch when I come in!"

"Oh, dearie me!" said Mrs. Rickett. "I do hope, miss, as young Jack'll
drive careful when he's got you in the car."

Juliet hoped so too as she hastened within to prepare for the expedition.
She did not feel any very keen zest for it, but, as she told Columbus,
they need never go again if they didn't like it.

It was nearly ten minutes before the Fielding car reappeared, and they
were both waiting at the garden-gate as it drew up.

"Yes, we were delayed," said Mrs. Fielding pettishly, "by those little
fiends of children. I do think Mr. Green might teach them to keep to
the side of the road. Pray get in, Miss Moore! Oh, do you want to bring
your dog?"

"He is used to motoring," said Juliet. "Do you mind if he sits in front?"

Mrs. Fielding shrugged her shoulders to indicate that if was a matter of
supreme indifference to her, and Columbus was duly installed by the
driver's side. Juliet took her place beside Mrs. Fielding, and in a few
seconds they were whirling up the road again, leaving clouds of dust in
their wake.

"It's the only way one can breathe on a day like this," said Mrs.
Fielding.

Juliet said nothing. She was watching the village children scatter like
rabbits before their lightning rush.

In the schoolhouse garden she caught sight of a heavy, shambling figure,
and waved a swift greeting as she flashed past.

"Oh, do you know that revolting youth?" said Mrs. Fielding. "He's
half-witted as well as deformed. His brother!" with a nod towards her
chauffeur's back. "He's a great trial to Jack, I believe. My husband has
offered a hundred times to have him put into a home, but the other
brother--Green, the schoolmaster--is absolutely pig-headed on the
subject, and won't hear of it."

"Poor Robin!" said Juliet gently. "Yes, I know him. He is certainly not
normal, but scarcely half-witted, do you think?"

Mrs. Fielding turned her head to bestow upon her a brief glance of
surprise. "I said half-witted," she observed haughtily.

Juliet turned her head also, and gave her companion a straight and level
look. "And I did not agree with you," she said quietly.

Mrs. Fielding uttered a laugh that had a girlish ring despite its
insolence. "Have you said that to my husband yet?" she asked.

"Not quite that," said Juliet.

"Well, if you ever do, may I be there to hear!" she rejoined flippantly.
"He's like a raging bull when he's crossed. I hear he came to see you
yesterday."

"He did," said Juliet.

"Did he talk about me?" asked Mrs. Fielding.

"He told me that you were not very strong," said Juliet.

"And that I wanted someone to look after me--coerce me, when he wasn't
there to do it himself. Was that it?"

"Surely you know better than that!" said Juliet.

"Oh, I know him awfully well," said Mrs. Fielding, with her reckless
laugh. "Are you really thinking of coming to live with us?"

"You haven't asked me yet," said Juliet.

"Oh, that doesn't matter. You'll come if you think you will; and if you
don't, nothing will induce you. But--let me tell you--my husband will be
furious--with me--if you don't."

"Oh, surely not!" said Juliet.

"Yes, he is that sort. If he doesn't get what he wants, it's always
someone else's fault--generally mine. I warn you--we have most frightful
rows sometimes. He has only just begun to speak to me again since last
Sunday. We quarrelled that day over Green. You know Green--the
schoolmaster--don't you?"

"Yes, I think I might call him a friend of mine," said Juliet,
with a smile.

"Oh, really! I didn't know that," Mrs. Fielding's tone was suddenly
extremely cold. "Hence your championship of Robin, I suppose?"

"No, I made friends with Robin separately. He is coming to tea with me
to-day, or rather, we are going down to the shore with it. I love the
shore in the evening."

"I wonder you care to mix with people like that," remarked Mrs.
Fielding. "I think it is such a mistake to take them out of their own
class. Green the schoolmaster is a constant visitor up at the Court, and
I object to it very strongly. I cannot understand my husband's attitude
in the matter."

"But he is a gentleman!" said Juliet.

"Who? Green? Oh yes, of sorts. I am glad to say his brother has no
aspirations in that direction." Mrs. Fielding glanced again towards her
chauffeur's unconscious back. "Or if he has, I don't get the benefit of
them. As for Robin, he gives me the cold shudders every time I see him."

"Poor Robin!" said Juliet again. "I think he feels his deformity
very much."

"Of course he does! He ought to be in a home among his own kind. It would
be far better for everyone concerned. Frankly, the Green family
exasperate me," declared Mrs. Fielding. "I can put up with Jack. He's
such a smart, good-looking boy, and he can drive like the devil. But I've
no use for the other two, and never shall have. I think Green's a humbug.
Is he going to join your picnic-party on the shore?"

"He hasn't been invited," said Juliet.

"Oh, you won't find he needs much encouragement. As Dene Strange puts it,
he is always hovering on the outside edge of every circle and ready to
squeeze in at the very first opportunity."

"I should imagine my circle is hardly important enough to attract anyone
in that way," remarked Juliet. "Strange is very caustic. I am not sure I
like him much."

"Oh, I enjoy him," said Mrs. Fielding. "He is so brilliant. He always
gets right there. You have never met him, I suppose?"

Juliet shook her head. "Not under that name, anyway. They say he is a
barrister. But I haven't much sympathy with a man who hides behind a
pseudonym, have you? It looks as if he hasn't the courage of his
opinions."

"I shouldn't think anyone ever accused Dene Strange of lack of courage,"
said Mrs. Fielding. "I read all he writes. He is so intensely clever."

"Some people think he's a woman," said Juliet.

"Oh, I don't believe that. Neither do you. No woman ever had a brain like
that. It's quite Napoleonic. I'd give a good deal to meet him."

"And be horribly disappointed," said Juliet.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because lions always are disappointing when they're hunted down. The
ones that roar are quite insufferable, and the ones that don't are
just banal."

Mrs. Fielding looked at her with interest for the first time. "You've
seen a good deal of life," she remarked.

"Oh, no!" said Juliet lightly. "But enough to realize that the torch of
genius burns best in dark places. Perhaps Strange is right after
all--from his own point of view at least. That lion-hunting business is
so revolting."

"You speak as one who knows," said Mrs. Fielding.

Juliet smiled. "I have watched from the outside edge, as Dene Strange
puts it. I expect you have heard of the Farringmores, haven't you? I am
distantly related to them. I was brought up with Lady Joanna. So I know a
little of what London people call life."

"I saw you had been in society," said Mrs. Fielding half enviously.

"Yes, I have had five seasons--nearly six. And I never want another."
Juliet spoke with great emphasis. "That's why I'm here now."

"I wonder you never married," said Mrs. Fielding.

"Do you?" Juliet spoke dreamily. They were running swiftly up a steep and
stony road leading to High Shale Point. "Lady Jo used to wonder that. But
I've never yet met a man who was willing to wait, and I couldn't do a
thing like that in a hurry."

"You could if you were in love," said Mrs. Fielding.

"Yes, perhaps you're right. In that case, I have never been enough in
love to take the leap." Juliet spoke with a half smile. Her eyes were
fixed upon the top of the hill. "But anyhow Lady Jo couldn't talk, for
she has just jilted Ivor Yardley the K. C. and gone to Paris to buy
mourning."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielding. "Why, I saw the description
of the wedding-dress in the paper the other day. It must have been a
near thing."

"It was," said Juliet soberly. "They were to have been married to-day."

"And she broke it off! That must have taken some pluck!"

"But she didn't stay to face the music," Juliet pointed out. "That was
what I hated in her. She ought to have stayed."

"Was she afraid of him then?"

"Afraid? Yes, she was afraid of him--and of everybody else. I know that
perfectly well, though you would never get her to admit it. She was
terrified in her heart--and so she bolted."

"Why didn't you go with her?" asked Mrs. Fielding.

Juliet made an odd gesture of the hands that was somehow passionate. "Why
should I? I have disapproved of her for a long time. Now we have finally
quarrelled. She behaved so badly--so very badly. I don't want to meet
her--or any of her set--again!"

Mrs. Fielding was silent for a moment. She had not expected that
intensity. "Do you know, that doesn't sound like you somehow?" she said
at length, speaking with just a hint of embarrassment.

"But how do you know what I am really like?" said Juliet. "Ah! There is
the sea again--and the wonderful sky-line! Is he going to stop? Or are
we going to plunge over the edge?"

She spoke with a little breathless laugh. They had reached the summit of
the great headland, and it looked for the moment as if the car must leap
over a sheer precipice into the clear green water far below. But even as
she spoke, there came a check and a pause, and then they were standing
still on a smooth stretch of grass not twenty feet from the edge.

The soft wind blew in their faces, and there was a glittering purity in
the atmosphere that held Juliet spell-bound. She breathed deeply, gazing
far out over that sparkling sea of wonder.

"Oh, the magic of it!" she said. "The glorious freedom! It makes you
feel--as if you had been born again."

Her companion watched her in silence, a certain curiosity in her look.

After many seconds Juliet turned round. "Thank you for bringing me here,"
she said. "It has done me good. I should like to stay here all day long."

Her eyes travelled along the line of cliff towards that distant spot that
had been the scene of her night adventure, and slowly returned to dwell
upon a long deep seam in the side of the hill.

"That's the lead mine," observed Mrs. Fielding. "It belongs to your
aristocratic relatives, the Farringmores. They are pretty badly hated by
the miners, I believe. But your friend Mr. Green is extremely popular
with them. He rather likes to be a king among cobblers, I imagine."

"How nice of him!" said Juliet. "And where do the cobblers live?"

"You can't see it from here. It's just on the other side of the
workings--a horribly squalid place. I never go near it. It's called High
Shale, but it's very low really, right in a pocket of the hills, and very
unhealthy. You can see the smoke hanging over there now. The cottages are
wretched places, and the people who live in them--words fail! Ashcott,
the agent and manager of the mines, says they are quite hopeless, and so
they are. They are just like pigs in a sty."

"Poor dears!" said Juliet.

"Oh, they're horrors!" declared Mrs. Fielding. "They fling stones at the
car if we go within half-a-mile of them. And they are such a drunken set.
Go round the other way, Jack,--round by Fairharbour! Miss Moore will
enjoy that."

"Thank you," said Juliet, with her friendly smile. "I am enjoying it
very much."

They travelled forty miles before they ran back again into Little Shale,
and the children were reassembling for afternoon school as they neared
the Court gates.

"Put me down here!" Juliet said. "I can run down the hill. It isn't worth
while coming those few yards and having to turn the car."

"I want you to lunch with me," said Mrs. Fielding.

"Oh, thank you very much. Not to-day. I really must get back. I've got to
buy cakes for tea," laughed Juliet.

Mrs. Fielding stopped the car abruptly. "I'm not going to press you, or
you'll never come near me again," she said. "I never press people to do
what they obviously don't want to. Do you think you would hate living
with me, Miss Moore? Or are you still giving the matter your
consideration?"

There was a hint of wistfulness in the arrogant voice that somehow
touched Juliet.

She sat silent for a moment; then: "If I might come to you for a week on
trial," she said. "You won't pay me anything of course. I think we
should know by that time if it were likely to answer or not."

"When will you come?" said Mrs. Fielding.

"Just when you like," said Juliet.

"To-morrow?"

"Yes, to-morrow, if that suits you."

"And if you don't hate me at the end of a week you'll come for good."

Juliet laughed. "No, I won't say that. I'll leave you a way of escape
too. We will see how it answers."

Mrs. Fielding held out her hand. "Good-bye! Next time you take your tea
on the shore, I want to be the guest of honour."

"You shall be," said Juliet.




CHAPTER IX

THE INTRUDER


"Everyone to his taste," remarked Green. "But I'd rather be anything
under the sun than Mrs. Fielding's paid companion." He glanced at
Juliet with a smile as he spoke, but there was a certain earnestness
in his speech that told her he meant what he said. He sat with his
back to a rock, smoking a cigarette. His attitude was one of repose,
but in the strong light his dark face showed a tenseness that did not
wholly agree with it.

"Do you really think you'll like it?" he asked, as Juliet did not speak.

She also had a cigarette between her lips, and there was genuine
relaxation in her fashion of lounging on the shingle.

"I really don't know," she said. "I've got to find out."

"Don't let them bully you!" said Green.

She smiled. "No, they won't do that. I think it is rather kind of them to
take me without references, don't you?"

"No," said Green.

She turned and surveyed him with a gleam of amusement in her look. "You
sound cross! Are you cross about anything?"

His eyes flashed down to hers with a suddenness almost startling. He did
not speak for a moment, then again he smiled abruptly with his eyes still
holding hers. "I believe I am," he said.

"I wonder why," said Juliet.

He laughed. "Yes, you do, don't you? Great impertinence on my part of
course. It's nice of you to put it so mildly."

"I don't think you impertinent," said Juliet; "only rather silly."

"Oh, thanks!" said Green. "Kinder and kinder. Silly to be cross on your
account, is that it? Well, it certainly sounds silly."

Juliet smiled. "No, silly to think I am not capable of taking care
of myself."

"Oh!" said Green. "Well, I have some reason for thinking that,
haven't I?"

"None whatever," said Juliet.

"All right. I haven't," he said, and looked away.

"You are cross!" ejaculated Juliet, and broke into a laugh.

Green smoked steadily for some seconds with his eyes upon the sea. A
few yards below them Robin wandered bare-footed along the shore,
accompanied by Columbus who had bestowed a condescending species of
friendship upon him.

Green's dark, alert face looked strangely swarthy against the rock behind
him. His expression was one of open discontent.

"I hate to think of you turning into that woman's slave," he said
abruptly. "To be quite honest, that was what brought me along to-day,
intruding upon your picnic with Robin. I want to warn you, I've got to
warn you."

"You have warned me," said Juliet.

"Without result," he said.

"No, not without result. I am very grateful to you, and I shall remember
your warning."

"But you won't profit by it," Green's voice was moody.

"I think I shall," she said. "In any case, I am only going for a week on
trial. That couldn't hurt anyone."

He did not look at her. "You're going out of the goodness of your
heart," he said. "And--though you won't like it--you'll stay for the
same reason."

"Oh, don't you think you are rather absurd?" said Juliet. "I am not at
all that sort of person, I assure you."

"I think you are," said Green.

She laughed again. "Well I am told you are quite a frequent visitor
there. Why do you go--if you don't like it?"

"That is different," he said. "I can hold my own--anyway with Mr.
Fielding."

She lifted her brows. "And you think I can't?"

"I think you'll lead a dog's life," he said.

"Oh, I hope not. It won't be on a chain anyhow. I've provided
against that."

"You'll hate it," Green said with conviction.

"I don't think I shall," she answered quietly. "If I do, I shall
come away."

"It'll be too late then," he said.

"Too late!" Juliet's soft eyes opened wide. "What can you mean?"

He made a gesture which though half-restrained was yet vehement "It's a
hostile atmosphere--a hateful atmosphere. She will poison you with her
sneers and snobbery!"

A light began to break upon Juliet. She sat up very suddenly. "That sort
of poison doesn't have any effect upon me," she said, and she spoke with
a stateliness that brought the man's eyes swiftly down to her. "I
am--sneer-proof."

"She won't sneer at you," said Green quickly.

With her eyes looking straight up to him, she laughed.

"Oh, I quite catch your meaning, Mr. Green. But--really I am not in the
position of listening to sneers against my friends. Now will you be
satisfied?"

He laughed also though still with a touch of restraint. "Yes, I feel
better for that. You are so royal in your ways. I might have known I was
safe there."

"'Loyal' is a better word I think," said Juliet quietly. "Why should a
paid companion aspire to be any higher in the social scale than a village
schoolmaster? Do you think occupation really makes any difference?"

"Theoretically--no!" said Green.

"Neither theoretically nor practically," said Juliet. "I detest snobbery,
so do you. If you came to the Court to sweep the kitchen chimney, I
should be just as pleased to see you. What a man does is nothing. How
could it make any difference?"

"It couldn't--to you," said Green.

"Or to you?" said Juliet.

He laughed a little, his black brows working comically. "Madame, if I met
you hawking stale fish for cat's meat in the public street, I couldn't
venerate you more or adore you less. Whatever you do--is right."

"Good heavens!" said Juliet, and flushed in spite of herself. "What a
magnificent compliment! It's a pity you are not wearing a slouch hat with
an ostrich plume! You really need a plume to express that sort of
sentiment properly."

"Yes, I know," said Green. "But--I imagine you are not attracted by
plumes. In fact, you have just told me so. Proof positive of your
royalty! It is only crowned heads that can afford to despise them
nowadays."

"Mine isn't a crowned head," protested Juliet.

He looked at her searchingly. "Have you never been to Court?"

She snapped her fingers airily. "Of course! Dozens of times! Poor
companions always go to Court. How often do you go!"

"As often as you admit me to your most gracious presence," he said.

She clapped her hands softly. "Why, that is even prettier than the stale
fish one! Mr. Green, what can have happened to you?"

"I daren't tell you," he said.

A sudden silence fell upon the words. Juliet puffed the smoke from her
cigarette, and watched it rise. "Well, don't spoil it, will you?" she
said, as it vanished into air.

Green's hand suddenly gripped a handful of shingle and ground it
forcibly. He did not speak for a second or two. Then: "No, I won't spoil
it," he said, in a low voice.

A moment later he flung the stones abruptly from him and got up.

"You're not going?" said Juliet.

"Yes, I've got work to do. Shall I take Robin with me?"

There was a dogged note in his voice. His eyes avoided hers.

Juliet rose slowly. "Never mind Robin! Walk a little way with me!" she
said.

"I think I'd better go," said Green restlessly.

"Please!" said Juliet gently.

He turned beside her without a word. They went down the shingle to the
edge of the sand and began to walk along the shore.

For many seconds they walked in silence. Juliet's eyes were fixed upon
the mighty outline of High Shale Point that stood out like a fortress,
dark, impregnable, against the calm of the evening sky. Her companion
sauntered beside her, his hands behind him. He had thrown away his
cigarette.

She spoke at length, slowly, with evident effort. "I want to tell
you--something--about myself."

"Something I really don't know?" asked Green, his dark face flashing
to a smile.

There was no answering smile on Juliet's face. "Yes, something you don't
know," she said soberly. "It's just this. I have much more in common with
Mrs. Fielding than you have any idea of. I have lived for pleasure
practically all my life. I have scrambled for happiness with the rest of
the world, and I haven't found it. It's only just lately that I've
realized why. I read a book called The Valley of Dry Bones. Do you know
it? But of course you do. It is by Dene Strange. I hate the man--if it is
a man. And I hate his work--the bitter cynicism of it, the merciless
exposure of humanity at its lowest and meanest. I don't know what his
ideals are--if he has any. I think he is probably very wicked, but
detestably--oh, damnably--clever. I burnt the book I hated it so. But I
felt--afterwards--as if I had been burnt, seared by hot
irons--ashamed--most cruelly ashamed." Juliet's voice sank almost to a
whisper. "Because--life really is like that--one vast structure of
selfishness--and in many ways I have helped to make it so."

She stopped. Green was looking at her attentively. He spoke at once with
decision. "I know the book. I've read it. It's an exaggeration--probably
intentional. It wasn't written--obviously--for the super-sensitive."

"Wasn't it?" Juliet's lips were quivering. "Well, it's been a positive
nightmare to me. I haven't got over it yet."

"That's curious," he said. "I shouldn't have thought it could have
touched you anywhere."

"That is because you have a totally wrong impression of me," she said.
"That is what I am trying to put right. I am the sort of person that
horrible book applies to, and I've fallen out with myself very badly in
consequence, Mr. Green. I haven't told anyone but you, but--somehow--I
feel as if you ought to know."

"Thank you," said Green. "But why?"

She met his eyes very steadily. "Because I'm trying to play the game now,
and--I don't want you to have any illusions."

"You don't want me to make a fool of myself," he said. "Is that it?"

She coloured very vividly, but she did not avoid his look. "I don't think
there is much danger of that, is there?" she said.

He stood still suddenly and faced her. His eyes burned with an amazing
brightness. "I don't know," he said, speaking emphatically and very
rapidly. "It depends of course upon the point of view. But I'll tell you
this. I'd give all I've got--and all I'm ever likely to get--to prevent
you going to Shale Court as a companion."

"Oh, but aren't you unreasonable?" Juliet said.

"No, I'm not." He made a vigorous gesture of repudiation. "Presumptuous
perhaps--but not unreasonable. I know too much of what goes on there.
Miss Moore, I beseech you--think again! Don't go!"

She looked at him in perplexity. "But it wouldn't be fair to draw back
now," she objected. "Besides--"

"Besides," he broke in almost fiercely, "you've got your living to make
like the rest of us. Yes, I know--I know! You regard this as a
Heaven-sent opportunity. It isn't. It's quite the reverse. If you were
unhappy in London, you'll be a thousand times more so there. And--and I
shan't be able to help you--shan't get anywhere near you there."

"It's very kind of you," began Juliet.

He cut her short again. "No, it isn't kind. You're the only woman of
your station I have ever met who has deigned to treat me as an equal.
It--it's a bit rash on your part, you know." He smiled at her abruptly,
and something sent a queer sensation through her--a curious feeling of
familiarity that held and yet eluded her. "And--as you see--I'm taking
full advantage of it. I hope you won't think me an awful cad after this.
I can't help it if you do. Miss Moore, forgive my asking,--are you really
obliged to work for your living? Can't you--can't you wait a little?"

Juliet was looking at him with wonder in her soft eyes. His sudden
vehemence was rather bewildering.

"I don't quite know," she said vaguely. "But I rather want to do
something, you know."

"Oh, I know--I know," he said. "But you're not obliged to do this.
Something else is bound to turn up. Or if it doesn't--if it
doesn't--" He ground his heel deep into the yielding sand, and ended
in a husky undertone. "My God! What wouldn't I give for the privilege
of working for you?"

The words were uttered and beyond recall. He looked her straight in the
face as he spoke them, but an instant later he turned and stared out over
the wide, calm sea in a stillness that was somehow more forcible even
than his low, half-strangled speech had been.

Juliet stood silent also, almost as if she were waiting for him to
recover his balance. Her eyes also were gazing straight before her to
that far mysterious sky-line. They were very grave and rather sad.

He broke the silence after many seconds. "You will never speak to me
again after this."

"I hope I shall," she said gently.

He wheeled and faced her. "You're not angry then?"

She shook her head. "No."

His eyes flashed over her with amazing swiftness. "I almost wish you
were," he said.

"But why?" she said.

"Because I should know then it mattered a little. Now I know it doesn't.
I am just one of the many. Isn't that it? There are so many of us that
one more or less doesn't count either way." He laughed ruefully. "Well, I
won't repeat the offence. Even your patience must have its limits. Shall
we go back?"

It was then that Juliet turned, moved by an impulse so strangely urgent
that she could not pause to analyse it. She held out her hand to him,
quickly, shyly, and as he gripped and held it, she spoke, her voice
tremulous, breathless, barely coherent.

"I am not--offended. I am--very--very--deeply--honoured. Only
you--you--don't understand."

He kept her hand closely in his own. His grasp vibrated with electric
force, but he had himself in check. "You are more generous than I
deserve," he said, his voice sunk to a whisper. "Perhaps--some
day--understanding will come. May I hope for that?"

She did not answer him, but for one intimate second her eyes looked
straight into his. Then with a little, sobbing breath she slipped her
hand free.

"We--are forgetting Robin," she said, with an effort.

He turned at once. "By George, yes! I'm afraid I had forgotten
him," he said.

They walked back along the shore side by side.




PART II




CHAPTER I

THE WAND OF OFFICE


Robin was in disgrace. He crouched in a sulky heap in a far corner of the
schoolroom, and glowered across the empty desks and benches at his elder
brother who sat in the place of authority at his writing-table with a
litter of untidy exercise-books in front of him. There was a long, thin
cane also at his elbow that had the look of a somewhat sinister wand of
office. He was correcting book after book with a species of forced
patience, that was not without an element of exasperation.

The evening sunlight slanted through the leaded windows. They were open
to their widest extent, but the place was oppressively close. There was a
brooding sense of storm in the atmosphere. Suddenly, as if in some
invisible fashion a set limit had been reached and passed, Richard Green
lifted his head from his work. His keen eyes sent a flashing glance down
the long, bare room.

"Robin!" he said.

Robin gave a violent start, and then a shuffling, reluctant movement as
if prodded into action against his will.

"Get up and come here!" his brother said.

Robin, in the act of blundering to his feet, checked abruptly, as if
arrested by something in the peremptory tone. "What for?" he asked, in a
surly note.

"Get up," Green repeated, with grim insistence, "and come here!"

Robin grabbed at the end of the row of desks nearest to him and dragged
himself slowly up. But there he hung irresolute. His heavy brows were
drawn, but the eyes beneath had a frightened, hunted look. They glared at
Green with a defiance so precarious that it was pathetic.

Green waited inexorably, magisterially, at his table. The sunlight had
gone and the room was darkening. Very slowly Robin moved forward,
dragging his feet along the bare boards. At the other end of the row of
desks he halted. His eyes travelled swiftly between his brother's stern
countenance and the wand of office that lay before him on the
writing-table. He shivered.

"Come here!" Green said again.

He crept a little nearer like a guilty dog. His humped shoulders looked
higher than usual. His eyes shone red.

Across the writing-table Green faced him. He spoke, very distinctly.

"Why did you throw that stone at Mrs. Fielding's car?"

Robin was trembling from head to foot. He drew a quivering breath between
his teeth, and stood silent.

"Tell me why!" Green insisted.

Robin locked his working hands together. Green waited.

"It--it--I didn't see--Mrs. Fielding," he blurted forth at last.

Green made a slight movement that might have indicated relief, but his
tone was as uncompromising as before as he said, "That's not an answer to
my question. I asked you why you did it."

Robin shrank from the curt directness of his speech. His defiance wilted
visibly. "I--didn't mean to break the window, Dicky," he said, twisting
and cracking his fingers in rising agitation.

"What did you mean to do?" said Green.

Robin stood silent again.

"Are you going to answer me?" Green said, after a pause.

Robin made a great effort. He parted his straining hands and rested them
upon the table behind which Green sat. Standing so, he glowered down into
his brother's grim face with something of menace in his own.

"I'll tell you one thing, Dicky," he said, with stupendous effort. "I'm
not going--to take a caning for it."

Green's eyebrows went up. He sat perfectly still, looking straight
up into the heavy face above him. For several seconds a tense
silence reigned.

Then: "Oh yes, you will," he said quietly. "You will take--whatever I
decide to give you. Sit down there!" He indicated the end of the bench
nearest to him. "I'll deal with you presently."

Robin did not stir. In the growing gloom of the room his eyes shone like
the eyes of an animal, goaded and desperate. But the man before him
showed neither surprise nor anger. His clean-cut lips were closed in a
straight, unyielding line. For a full minute he looked at Robin and Robin
looked at him.

Then he spoke. "I've only one treatment for this sort of thing--as you
know. It isn't especially inspiring for either of us. I shouldn't qualify
for it if I were you."

Robin had begun to shake again. The cold, clear words seemed to deprive
him of the brief strength he had managed to muster. His eyes fell before
the steady regard that was fixed upon him. With an incoherent murmur he
turned aside, and dropped upon the end of the bench indicated, his
trembling hands gripped hard between his knees, his attitude one of
utter dejection.

Green went back to his correcting with a frown between his brows, and a
deep silence fell.

Minutes passed. The room grew darker, the atmosphere more leaden. Pencil
in hand, Green went over book after book and put them aside. Suddenly he
looked across at the silent figure. The humped shoulders were heaving.
Slow tears were falling upon the clasped hands. There was no sound of any
sort. Green sat and watched, a kind of stern pity replacing the
unyielding mastery of his look. He moved at length, was on the verge of
speech, when something checked him. Footsteps fell beyond the open door,
and in a moment a man's figure appeared entering through the gloom.

"Hullo, Dick!" a voice said. "You here? There's going to be the devil of
a storm. Where's that scoundrel Robin?"

Robin stirred with a deep sound in his throat like the growl of an
angry animal.

Richard Green rose with a sharp movement. "Jack! I want a word with you.
Come outside!"

He passed Robin and went to the new-comer, gripping him quickly by the
shoulder and turning him back by the way he had come.

Jack submitted to the imperative touch. He was taller and broader than
his elder brother, but he lacked that subtle something--the distinction
of bearing--which in Richard was very apparent.

"Well, Dick! What do you want?" he said. "I'm pretty mad, I can tell you.
I hope you're going to thrash him well. Because if you don't, I shall."

Briefly and decidedly Dick made answer. "No, you won't. You'll not touch
him. I shall do--whatever is necessary."

"Shall you?" said Jack. "Then why don't you shut him up in a wild-beast
house? It's the only place he's fit for."

"Shut up, please!" Richard's tone was an odd mixture of tolerance and
exasperation. "I'll manage this affair my own way. But I've got to know
the truth of it first. What made him throw that stone? Have you been
baiting him again?"

"I?" Jack squared his shoulders; a sneer crossed his good-looking face.
"Oh, say I did it!" he drawled.

"Don't be an ass, Jack! Can't you see I want your help?" Richard spoke
with insistence; his hand gripped his brother's arm.

Jack's sneer turned to a self-satisfied smile. "I'll help you hammer him
if you like. There's nothing would please me better. Oh, all right, man!
Don't be impatient! That's my funny bone when you've done with it. I
don't mind telling you all about it if you want to know. He chucked that
stone at me out of sheer damned vindictiveness. He meant to break my
head, but he broke the window instead, and frightened Madam Fielding into
fits. In her own park too! It's a bit thick, you know, that. I don't
wonder that she came straight along to you to demand his blood. You'll
have the old man down next; also the beautiful Miss Moore. It's getting
beyond a joke, you know, Dick. You'll have to shut the beast up. You
can't let him run amuck like this."

"Shut up!" Dick said again. In the unnatural light his face looked drawn
and almost haggard. "I want to know why he did it. Can't you tell me?"

"Oh yes, I can tell you that. He's taken to haunting the place--the
Court, mind you--to lie in wait for the fair Juliet. She's been too kind
to him, unluckily for her, and now he dogs her footsteps whenever he gets
a chance. I caught him this afternoon, right up by the house, and I
ordered him off. You know the squire and madam both loathe the very sight
of him, and small wonder. I do myself. So I told him what he was and
where to go to, and I presume he thought he'd send me there first. There
you have it all--cause and effect."

"Thank you," said Dick. He paused a moment looking speculatively at
Jack's complacent face. "It was a pity you were so damned offensive,
but I suppose it's the way you're made. You were the sole cause of the
whole thing, and if there's any decency in you, you'll go and tell the
squire so."

He spoke quickly, but with characteristic decision and wholly without
excitement. Jack jumped, and threw back his head as if he had received a
blow across the mouth. Swift temper sprang to his eyes.

"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded.

"Exactly what I have said," returned Dick briefly. "And perhaps a
little more."

"Confound you!" blustered Jack. "And you expect me to go to the squire
and tell him it was my fault, do you?"

"No. I don't expect it in the least." Dick almost laughed. "In fact,
nothing would surprise me more. Thank you for telling me the truth. Do
you mind clearing out now? I don't want you in here."

His curt, cold tones fell like ice on flame. Jack swore a muffled oath
and turned away. There was no one in the world who possessed the power to
humble him as did Dick, who with a few scorching words could make him
writhe in impotent fury. For there was no gainsaying Dick. He was always
unassailable in his justice, since in a fashion inexplicable but tacitly
acknowledged by both he occupied a higher plane altogether. Ignore it as
he might, deep in his inner soul Jack knew this man to be his master. He
might, and sometimes did, resist his control, deny his authority; yet the
power remained, and Dick knew how to exercise it if the need arose. They
were seldom at open variance, but practically never in sympathy.

The fate of poor Robin had been a matter of disagreement between them
ever since Jack had come to man's estate, but the issue did not rest
with Jack. No power on earth could move Dick in that direction. Robin
was his own peculiar property, and in this respect he permitted
interference from none.

He left Jack now, and turned back into the schoolroom with deep lines
between his brows, but implacable determination in his every movement, a
determination that was directed against the poor cowering form that
crouched still in the same position waiting for him.

Robin looked up at his coming, drawing himself together with a nervous
contraction of the muscles like the mute shrinking of an abject dog.

Dick stopped in front of him. "So you're not going to take a
caning!" he said.

There was no longer any rebellion in Robin's attitude. He dropped his
eyes swiftly from his brother's face, saying no word. In the silence
that followed, his hands began to work, straining ceaselessly against
each other.

Dick waited for a few seconds. "Going on strike, are you?" he asked then,
as Robin did not speak.

Robin shook his head dumbly.

"What does that mean?" Dick said.

Robin was silent. He was nearly dislocating his fingerjoints in his
agitation.

Richard bent suddenly and laid a quieting hand upon him. "Robin, do you
know you've got me into bad trouble?"

Robin gave a violent jerk, and in a moment stumbled to his feet. He did
not look at his brother, but turned aside in his blundering pathetic
fashion, and went to the littered writing-desk.

Dick's wand of office still lay among the scattered exercise-books. He
pulled it out with a clumsy eagerness, tossing papers and books on the
floor in his haste. He turned and went back to Dick, thrusting the cane
towards him.

"There, Dicky!" he said, and stood breathing heavily and trembling.

Dick reached out and took the cane. The lines of his face were oddly
softened. He stood for a moment looking at the boy, then very sharply he
moved, bent, and snapped the thing across his knee.

"Oh, dash it, Robin!" he said. "You're getting too much for me."

He tossed the fragments from him, and went to pick up the books that
Robin had scattered on the floor.

Robin came and grovelled by his side, helping him. "You aren't angry, are
you, Dicky?" he murmured anxiously.

"I ought to be," Dick said, as he sat down and began to straighten out
the muddle in front of him.

Robin knelt up by his side. "Please don't be, Dicky!" he said very
earnestly. "I won't ever do it again. I swear I won't."

Dick smiled somewhat wryly. "No. You'll probably think of some other
devilry even worse." He put his arm round the humped shoulders with the
words. "You'll forget--you always do--that it's I who have to pay."

Robin pressed against him, still dog-like in his contrition. "Will it
cost much?" he asked.

"Oh that! The window, you mean? Well, not so much as if you had broken
Jack's head--as you intended."

There was some hint of returning grimness in Dick's voice. Robin made an
ingratiating movement, leaning his rough head against his brother's arm.

Dick went on, ignoring the unspoken appeal. "You've got to stop it Robin.
If you don't, there'll be trouble--worse trouble than you've had yet.
You don't want to leave me, I suppose?"

"Leave you, Dicky?" Robin stared round in horror. "Leave you?" he
repeated incredulously. "Go to prison, do you mean?"

Dick nodded. "Something like it."

"Dick!" Robin stared at him aghast. "But--you--you'd never let
them--take me?"

"If you were to damage Jack--or anyone else--badly, I shouldn't be able
to prevent it." Dick said rather wearily. "If it came to that--I
shouldn't even try."

"Dick!" Robin gasped again, then passionately; "But I--I--I couldn't
live--away from you! I'd--I'd kill myself!"

"No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't get the chance." Dick was staring
straight before him down the room, as if he watched some evil vision
against the darkness. "People aren't allowed to kill themselves in
prison. If they try to do anything of that sort, they're tied down till
they come to their senses. If they behave like brutes, they're treated as
such, till at last they turn into that and nothing else. And then--God
help them!"

A sudden hard shudder caught him. He shook it off impatiently, and turned
to the quivering figure still kneeling in the circle of his arm.

He gripped it suddenly close. "That's the sort of hell these fiendish
tempers of yours might end in," he said. "You've got to save yourself, my
son. I can't save you."

Robin clung to him tensely, desperately. "You don't--want me to go,
Dicky?" he whispered.

"Good God!" Richard said. "I'd rather see you dead!"

In the silence that followed, Robin turned with a curious groping
movement, took the hand that pressed his shoulder, and pulled it
over his eyes.




CHAPTER II

MIDSUMMER MADNESS


An ominous darkness brooded over all things as Green walked up the long
avenue of Shale Court half-an-hour later. The storm had been long in,
gathering, and he judged that he would yet have time to reach his
destination before it broke. But it was nearer than he thought, and the
first dull roar of its coming reached him soon after he had passed the
gates. He shrugged his shoulders at the sound and hurried on, for he was
in no mood to turn back. The business before him was one that could not
be shirked, and the lines on his dark face showed unyielding
determination as he went.

He was half-way up the drive when the first flash of lightning glimmered
eerily across the heavy gloom. It was followed so swiftly by a burst of
thunder that he realized that he had no time to spare if he hoped to
escape the threatening deluge. He broke into a run, covering the ground
with the ease of the practised athlete, elbows at sides and head up,
going at an even pace which he knew he could maintain to the finish
without distress.

But he was not destined to run to a finish. As he rounded a bend that
gave him a view of the house in the distance, he suddenly heard a voice
call to him from the deep shadow of the trees, and checking sharply he
discerned a dim figure coming towards him across the grassy ride that
bordered the road.

He diverted his course without a moment's thought, and went to meet it.

"Ah, how kind of you!" said Juliet. "And there's going to be such a
downpour in a minute."

"What is the matter?" he said, her hand in his.

She was smiling a difficult smile. "Nothing very much. Not enough to
warrant my extreme selfishness in stopping you. I have given my foot a
stupid twist, that's all, and it doesn't like walking."

"Take my arm!" said Green.

She took it, her white face still bravely smiling. "Thank you, Mr.
Green."

"Lean hard!" he said.

She obeyed him, and he led her, limping, to the road, Columbus, the
ever-faithful, trudging behind.

"It really is a shame," she said. "We shall both be drenched now."

He glanced at the threatening sky. "It may hold off for a bit yet. What
were you doing?"

"I was coming to see you," she said.

"To see me!" His look came swiftly to her. "What about?"

"About Robin," she answered simply. "I wasn't in the car when it
happened, but I heard all about it when Mrs. Fielding came in. Mr. Green,
I hope you haven't been very hard on him."

Green was silent for a moment. "And you started straight off to come to
the rescue?" he said then.

"Oh, I felt sure that he acted on impulse, not realizing. You can't
judge him by ordinary standards. It isn't fair," pleaded Juliet. "There
was probably some extenuating circumstance in the background--something
we don't know about. I hope you haven't been very severe. You haven't,
have you?"

Green began to smile. "You make me out an awful ogre," he said. "Is it my
trade that does it? No, I haven't punished him at all. As you say, we
must be fair, and I found he wasn't the person most to blame. Can you
guess who was?"

"No," said Juliet.

"I thought not. Well, I have traced it to its source, and it lies--at
your door."

"At mine!" ejaculated Juliet.

"At yours, yes. You've been too kind to him. It's just your way, isn't
it? You spoil everybody." Again for an instant his look flashed over her.
"With the result that Robin, not hampered by convention as are the rest
of us, lies in wait on forbidden ground for a glimpse of his divinity.
Being caught and roundly abused for it by his brother Jack, he naturally
took offence and trouble ensued. That is the whole story."

"Oh, dear," said Juliet. "But surely that was very unnecessary of your
brother Jack. He might have made allowances."

"My brother Jack often does unnecessary things," said Green drily. "And
he never makes allowances for anyone but himself."

"And you have to bear the consequences!" Juliet's voice was quick with
sympathy. "But that's too bad!"

"I'm used to it," said Green, and laughed. "How are you getting on?
Enjoying life at the Court?"

Juliet smiled. "Do you know--I am rather? They have been very good to
me."

"So far," said Green. "Are you still on probation?"

"The week is up to-morrow," she told him.

"And you're staying on--of course?"

She looked at him. "Don't you want me to stay on?"

"You know my sentiments," said Green.

A sudden vivid flash rent the gloom over them, and Juliet caught her
breath. There followed a burst of thunder that seemed to shake the very
foundation of the earth.

She tried to break into a hobbling run, but he held her back.
"Better not. You'll only hurt yourself. It isn't raining yet. You're
not nervous?"

She laughed a little, breathlessly. "I don't admit it. I should never
dare to show the white feather in your presence. Oh, look at that!"
She shrank in spite of herself as another intolerable flare darted
across the sky.

"We're nearly in," said Green, but his words were drowned in such a
volume of sound as made further speech impossible. He awoke to the fact
that Juliet was clinging to his arm with both hands, and in a second his
free hand was on the top of them holding them tightly.

The thunder rolled away, and a deeper darkness fell. Great drops of rain
began to splash around them.

"Quick!" gasped Juliet. "We can't--possibly--reach the house now. There
is an arbour--by the garden gate. Let's go there!"

He turned off the road on to a side-path that led to a shrubbery. The
rush and roar of the coming rain was sweeping up from the sea. Juliet
pressed forward.

Again a jagged line of light gleamed before them. Again the thunder
crashed. They found the little gate and the arbour beyond.

"Thank goodness!" gasped Juliet.

She stumbled at the step of the summer-house, and he thrust an arm
forward to catch her. He almost lifted her into shelter. The darkness
within was complete. She leaned upon him, trembling.

"You're not hurt?" he said.

"No, not hurt, only--shaken--and--and--stupid," she answered, on the
verge of tears.

His arm still held her. It closed about her, very surely, very steadily.
He did not utter a word.

The rain swept down in a torrent, as if the skies had opened. Great
hail-stones beat upon the laurels around them with tropical violence.
The noise of the downpour seemed vaster, more overwhelming, even than
the thunder.

Juliet was palpitating from head to foot. She leaned upon the supporting
arm, her eyes closed against the leaping lightning, her two hands pressed
hard upon her breast. Columbus crouched close to her, shivering.

And ever the man's arm drew her nearer, nearer, till she felt the strong
beating of his heart. The storm raged on about them, but they two stood,
as it were, alone, wrapped at its very centre in a great silence. For
minutes they neither moved nor spoke.

Slowly the turmoil abated. The downpour lessened. The storm passed. And
Juliet stirred.

"How--disgraceful of me!" she murmured. "I'm not generally so foolish as
this. But--it was so very violent."

"I know," he said. His hold slackened. He let her go. And then suddenly
he stayed her. He took her hand, and bending pressed it closely,
burningly, to his lips.

She stood motionless, suffering him. But in a moment, as he still held
her, very gently she spoke. "Mr. Green, please--don't be so terribly
in earnest! It's too soon. I warned you before. You haven't known
me--long enough."

He stood up and faced her, her hand still in his. A light was growing
behind the storm-clouds, revealing his dark clean-cut features, and the
look half humorous, half-tense, that rested upon them.

"Yes, I know you warned me," he said rather jerkily. "I quite realize
that it's my funeral--not yours. I shan't ask you to be chief mourner
either. I've always considered that when a man makes a fool of himself
over a woman it's up to him to bear the consequences without asking her
to share them."

"But we're not talking of--funerals," said Juliet.

"Aren't we?" His hand tightened for a moment upon hers. "I thought we
were. What is it then?"

She smiled at him with a whimsical sadness in the weird storm-light. "I
think there are a good many names for it," she said. "I call it midsummer
madness myself."

He made a quick gesture of protest. "Do you? Oh, I know a better name
than that. But you don't want to hear it. I believe you are afraid of me.
It sounds preposterous. But I believe you are."

Her hand stirred within his, but not as though seeking to escape. "No, I
don't think so," she said, and in her voice was a sound as if laughter
and tears were striving together for the mastery. "But I'm trying--so
dreadfully hard--to be--discreet. I don't want you to let yourself go too
far. It's so difficult--you don't know how difficult it is--to get back
afterwards."

"Good heavens!" he said. "Don't you realize that I passed the
turning-back stage long ago."

"Oh, I hope not!" she said quickly. "I hope not!"

"Then I am afraid you are doomed to disappointment," he said, with a
touch of cynicism. "But I am sure you are far too sensible--discreet, I
mean--to let that worry you. And anyway," he smiled abruptly, "I don't
want you to be worried--just when you're having such a jolly time at the
Court too."

"You're very sarcastic," said Juliet.

He laughed a little. "No. That's not me. It's only the armour in which I
encase myself. I hope it doesn't offend you. I can always take it off.
Only--I am not sure you'd like that any better."

He won his point. She smiled, though somewhat dubiously. And at length
her hand gently freed itself from his.

"Well, I don't like hurting people," she said. "And I don't want to hurt
you. You understand that, don't you?" There was pleading in her words.

"Yes, perfectly," he said.

She glanced at him, for his tone was baffling. "And you don't think
me--quite heartless?"

He bent towards her. "No," he said, and though he smiled as in duty bound
she caught a deep throb in his voice that pierced straight through her.
"I love you all the better for it." Then, before she could find words to
protest, "I say, I believe it's left off raining. Hadn't we better go
while we can?"

She turned to look. A pale light was shining from the western sky. The
storm was over. The raindrops glittered in the growing radiance. The
whole earth seemed transformed. "Yes, let us go!" she said, and stepped
down into a world of crystal clearness.

He followed her, his face uplifted to the scattering drops, moving with a
free and faun-like spring that seemed to mark him as a being closely
allied to Nature, curiously vital yet also curiously self-restrained.

She did not look at him again, but as they passed together through the
wonderland which with every moment was growing to a more amazing
brightness, she told herself that there was little of midsummer madness
about this man's emotions. Jest as he might, she knew by instinct that he
was vitally in earnest and she had a strange conviction that it was for
the first time in his life. The certainty disquited her. Had she fled
from one danger to another--she who only asked for peace?

But she reassured herself with the thought that he had held her against
his heart, and he had not sought to take her. That forbearance of his
gave him a greatness in her eyes to which no other man had ever attained.
And gradually a sense of security to which she was little accustomed came
about her heart and comforted her. She had warned him. Surely he
understood!




CHAPTER III

A DRAWN BATTLE


Almost in silence they passed up through the dripping garden to the house
side by side, Columbus trotting demurely behind. Juliet was still
limping, but she would not accept support.

"I suppose you are going to beard the lion in his den," she said as they
drew near.

"I suppose I am," said Green. "If you hear sounds of a serious fracas,
perhaps you will come to the rescue."

"Not to yours," she said lightly. "You are more than capable of holding
your own--anywhere."

He flashed her his sudden look. "Do you really think so? I assure you I
am considered very small fry, indeed, in this household."

"That's very good for you," said Juliet.

They mounted to the terrace that bounded the south front of the house,
and entered by a glass door that led into a conservatory. Here for a
moment Juliet paused. Her grey eyes under their level brows met his with
a friendly smile.

"I think I must leave you now, Mr. Green," she said, "and go and find
Mrs. Fielding. I expect the squire is in his study."

His answering smile was as ready as her own, but there was a secret
triumph about it that hers lacked. "Pray don't trouble any further on my
account!" he said courteously. "I can find my own way."

She threw him a nod, cool and kindly, over her shoulder, and took him at
his word. He watched her disappear into the room beyond, Columbus in
close attendance; then for a few seconds his hands went up to his face,
and he stood motionless, pressing his temples hard, feeling the blood
surging at fever heat through his veins. How marvellous she was--and
withal how gracious! How had he dared? Midsummer madness indeed! And yet
she had suffered him--had even stooped to plead with him!

A great shaft of red sunlight burst suddenly through the heaped
storm-clouds in the west. He turned and faced it, dazzled but strangely
exultant. He felt as if his whole being had been plunged into the glowing
flame. The wonder of it pulsed through and through him. As it were
involuntarily, a prayer sprang to his lips.

"O God," he said, "make me worthy!"

Then he turned, as if the glory had become too much for him, and went
into the house.

He had been well acquainted with the place from boyhood though since the
squire's marriage he had ceased to enter it unannounced. Before his
appointment to the village school, he had acted for a time as the
squire's secretary; but it had never been more than a temporary
arrangement and it had come to a speedy end when Mrs. Fielding became
mistress of the Court. Between her and her husband's protege, as she
scornfully called him, there had always existed a very decided antipathy.
She resented his presence in the house at any time, and though the squire
made it abundantly clear that he would permit no open insolence on her
part, she did not find it difficult to convey her feelings on the subject
to the man himself. He accepted the situation with a shrug and a smile,
and though he did not discontinue his visits on her account, they became
less frequent than formerly; and now generally he came and went again
without seeing her.

The room he entered was empty. He passed through it without a pause
and found himself in the great entrance hall. He crossed this to a
door on the other side and, knocking briefly, opened it without
waiting for a reply.

"Hullo!" said the squire's voice. "You, is it? How did you get here? Were
you caught in the storm?"

"No, sir, I took shelter." Green shut the door, and came forward.

Mr. Fielding was seated in a leather arm-chair with a newspaper. He
looked at his visitor over it with anything but a favourable eye.

"What have you come for?" he said.

Green halted in front of him. "I've come to make a very humble apology,"
he said, "for my boy Robin's misdemeanour."

"Have you?" growled Fielding. He sat motionless, still looking up at
Green from under heavily scowling brows. "Do you think I'm going to be
satisfied with just an apology?"

"May I sit down, please?" said Green, pulling forward a chair.

"Oh yes, sit down! Sit down and argue!" said the squire irritably.
"You're always ready with some plausible excuse for that half-witted
young scoundrel. I'll tell you what it is, Dick. If you don't get rid
of him after this, there'll be a split between us. I'm not going to
countenance your infernal obstinacy any longer. The boy is unsafe and
he must go."

Green sat, leaning forward, courteously attentive, his eyes unwavering
fixed upon his patron's irate countenance.

He did not immediately reply to the mandate, and the squire's frown
deepened. "You hear me, Dick?" he said.

Green nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Well?" Fielding's hand clenched upon the paper in exasperation.

Dick's eyes very bright, wholly undismayed, continued to meet his with
unvarying steadiness. "I'm very sorry, sir," he said. "The answer is the
same as usual. I can't."

"Won't--you mean!" There was a sound in the squire's voice like the
muffled roar of an angry animal.

Dick's black brows travelled swiftly upward and came down again. "He's my
boy, sir," he said. "I'll be responsible for all he does."

"But--damn it!" ejaculated the squire. "Making yourself responsible for a
mad dog doesn't prevent his biting people, does it? He's become a public
danger, I tell you. You've no right to let him loose on the
neighbourhood."

"No, no, sir!" Dick broke in quickly. "That's not a fair thing to say.
The boy is as harmless as any of us if he isn't baited. I knew--I knew
perfectly well--that there was a reason for what he did to-day. So there
was. I'm not going into details. Besides, he was clearly in the wrong.
But you may take it from me--he was provoked."

"Oh! Was he?" said the squire. "And who provoked him? Jack?"

Dick hesitated momentarily, then: "Yes, Jack," he said briefly. "He had
some reason, but he's such a tactless ass. He blames Robin of course.
Everyone always does."

"Except you," said the squire drily. "Oh, and Miss Moore! She makes
excuses for him at every turn."

"She would," said Dick simply.

"I don't know why," snapped Fielding. He suddenly laid a hand on the
younger man's arm, gripping it mercilessly. "Look here, Richard! Do you
want me to break you? Because that's what it's coming to. Do you hear?
That's what it's coming to. You're getting near the end of your tether."

Dick's eyes flashed with swift comprehension over the angry face before
him, and an answering flicker of anger sprang up in them for an instant;
but he kept himself in hand.

"Get me kicked out, you mean?" he said coolly. "Yes, sir, no doubt you
could if you tried hard enough. You're all powerful here, aren't you?
What you say, goes."

"It does," said Fielding grimly. "And I don't care a damn what I do when
my monkey's up. You know that, don't you?"

"Rather!" said Dick. And suddenly the resentment died out of his face,
and he began to laugh. "All right, sir! Break me if you like! I'll come
out on top somehow."

"Confound you! Do you think you can defy me?" fumed Fielding.

"I'm sure of it," said Dick. "I can defy the whole world if I choose.
There is a certain portion of a man, you know, that can't be beat if he
plays fair, however hard he's hammered. It's the rule of the game."

"Confound you!" the squire said again, and sprang fiercely to his feet.
"Don't talk to me! You go too far. You always have. You behave as
if--as if--"

"As if I were my own master," said Dick quietly. "Well, I am that, sir.
It's the one thing in life I can lay claim to."

"And a lord of creation into the bargain, eh?" the squire flung at him,
as he tramped to the end of the room.

Dick rose punctiliously and stood waiting, a man unimposing of height and
build yet possessing that innate dignity which no adversity can impair.
He said nothing, merely stood and watched the squire with half-comic
resignation till he came tramping back.

Fielding's face as he turned was heavy with displeasure, but as his look
fell upon the offender a sudden softening began to struggle with the deep
lines about his mouth. It was like a gleam of sunshine on a dark day.

He went to Dick, and took him by the shoulder. "Confound you!" he said
for the third time. "You're just like your mother. Pig-headed as a mule,
but--"

"Are mules pig-headed?" said Dick flippantly.

The squire shook him. "Be quiet, you prig! I won't be dictated to by you.
Look here, Dick!" His voice changed abruptly. "I'm not ordering. I'm
asking. That boy is a mill-stone round your neck. Let him go! He'll be
happy enough. I'll see to that. Give him up like a dear chap! Then you'll
be free--free to chuck this absurd, farcical existence you're leading
now--free to make your own way in the world--free to marry and be happy."
Dick made a slight movement under the hand that held him, but he did not
attempt to speak. The squire went on. "You can't hope for any of those
things under existing conditions. It wouldn't be fair to ask any woman to
share your present life. It would be almost an insult with this infernal
incubus hanging on you. Can't you see my point? Can't you sacrifice your
damned obstinacy? You'd never regret it. You're ruining yourself, Dick.
Chance after chance has gone by, and you've let 'em go. But you can't
afford to go on. You're in your prime now, but let me tell you a man's
prime doesn't last. A time will come when you'll realize it's too late to
make a start, and you'll look back and curse the folly that induced you
to saddle yourself with a burden too heavy for you to bear."

He paused. Dick was looking straight before him with a set, grim face
that gave no indication of what was passing in his mind.

Again, more gently, the squire shook the shoulder under his hand. "I'm
out to make you happy, Dick. Can't you see it? For your mother's sake--as
well as your own. And there's a chance coming your way now--or I'm much
mistaken--which it would be madness to miss. This Miss Moore--she's
dropped from the skies, but she's charming, she's a lady, she's just the
woman for you. What, Dick? Think so yourself, do you? No, it's all right,
I'm not prying. But this is a chance you'll never get again. And you
can't ask her, you can't have the face to ask her, as long as you keep
that half-witted creature dangling after you. It wouldn't be right, man,
even if she'd have you. Look the thing in the face, and you'll be the
first to say so! It would be a hopeless handicap to any marriage--an
insurmountable obstacle to happiness, hers as well as yours. Don't tell
me you can't see it! You know it. You know you've no right to ask any
woman to share a burden of that kind with you. It would be manifestly
unfair--iniquitous. There! I've done. I've never spoken my mind to this
extent before. I've hoped--I've always hoped--the wretched boy would
die. But he hasn't. That sort never does. He'll live for ever. And it's a
damned shame that you should sacrifice yourself to him any longer. For
heaven's sake let him go!"

He ceased to speak, and there fell a silence so tense, so electric, that
it seemed as if it must mask something terrible. Dick's face was still
immovable, but he had the look of a man who endures unutterable things.
He had flinched once--and only once--during the squire's speech, and that
was at the first mention of Juliet. But for the rest he had stood quite
rigid, as he stood now, his lips tightly compressed, his eyes looking
straight before him.

He came out of his silence at last with a movement so sudden that it was
as if he flung aside some weight that threatened to overwhelm him. The
arrested vitality flashed back into his face. He threw back his head with
a smile, and looked the squire in the face.

"You haven't left me a leg to stand on, sir," he said. "But all the
same--I stand. There's nothing more to be said except--may I pay for
the window?"

Fielding's hand dropped from his shoulder. He flung round fiercely and
tramped to the window, swearing inarticulately.

Dick's black brows went up again to a humorous angle. He pursed his lips,
but he did not whistle.

"Do you realize that my wife might have been killed?" Fielding
growled at last.

"Oh, quite," said Dick. "I'm glad she wasn't. Ought I to congratulate
her?"

"Oh, don't be so damn funny!" Fielding jingled the money in his pocket
irritably. "You won't laugh when I turn you out."

"I wonder," said Dick.

Fielding turned sharply round upon him. "You behave as if you don't care
what I do," he said, an ugly scowl on his face. "Or perhaps you think I
won't or can't--do it."

"No, sir," Dick spoke deliberately, and though he still smiled his eyes
held the squire's with unmistakable determination. "I'm sure you can do
it. I'm equally sure you won't. And I'm surest of all that I shouldn't
care a damn if you did."

"You wouldn't care!" The squire looked furious for a moment, then he
sneered. "Oh, wouldn't you, my friend? We shall see. You'd better go
now--before I have you kicked out."

Dick's shoulders jerked with a swift tightening of the muscles. His eyes
gleamed with a fierce light though his smile remained. "I'll lay you even
odds," he said, "that if you want that done, you'll have to do it
yourself."

"I'm equal to it!" flashed the squire. "You'd better not try me too far!"

"I won't try you at all, sir," Dick suddenly relaxed again. He went to
him with a pacific hand held out. "Good-bye! I'm going--now."

Fielding looked at him, looked at the extended hand, paused for a long
moment, finally took it.

"Don't want to quarrel with me, eh?" he said.

"Not without cause," said Dick.

Fielding gripped the firm, lithe hand, looking at him hard and
straight. "You're very cussed," he said slowly. "I wish I'd had the
upbringing of you."

Dick laughed. "Well, you've meddled in my affairs as long as I can
remember, sir. I don't know anyone who has had as much to do with me as
you have."

"And precious little satisfaction I've got out of it," grumbled the
squire. "You've always been a kicker." He broke off as a knock came at
the door, and turned away with an impatient fling. "Who is it? Come in!"

The door opened. Juliet stood on the threshold. The evening light fell
full upon her. She was dressed in cloudy grey that fell about her in soft
folds. Her face was flushed, but quite serene.

"Mrs. Fielding wants to know if you have forgotten dinner," she said.

The squire's face changed magically. He smiled upon Juliet. "Come in,
Miss Moore! You've met this pestilent pedagogue before, I think."

"Just once or twice," said Juliet, coming forward.

"How is the ankle?" said Green.

She smiled at him without embarrassment. "Oh, better, thank you. It was
only a wrench."

"Hurt yourself?" questioned Fielding.

"No, no. It's really nothing. I slipped in the park and nearly sprained
my ankle--just not quite," said Juliet. "And Mr. Green very kindly helped
me into shelter before the storm broke."

"Did he?" said the squire and looked at Green searchingly. "Well, Mr.
Green, you'd better stay and dine as you are here."

"You're very kind," Dick said. "I don't know whether I ought. I'm
not dressed."

"Of course you ought!" said Fielding testily. "Come on and wash! Your
clothes won't matter--we're alone. That is, if Miss Moore doesn't object
to sitting down with blue serge."

"I have no objection whatever," said Juliet. She was looking from one to
the other with a slightly puzzled expression.

"What is it?" said Fielding, pausing.

His look was kindly. Juliet laughed. "I don't know. I feel as I felt that
day you caught me trespassing. Am I trespassing, I wonder?"

"No!" said Fielding and Green in one breath.

She swept them a deep Court courtesy.

"Thank you, gentlemen! With your leave I will now withdraw."

The squire was at the door. He bowed her out with ceremony, watched her
cross the hall, then sharply turned his head. Green was watching her
also, but, keen as the twist of a rapier in the hand of a practised
fencer, his eyes flashed to meet the squire's.

Fielding smiled grimly. He motioned him forward, gripped him by the
arm, and drew him out of the ream. They mounted the shallow oak stairs
side by side.

At the top in a tense whisper Fielding spoke. "Don't you be a fool,
Richard! Don't you be a damn' fool!"

Dick's laugh had in it a note that was not of mirth. "All right, sir,
I'll do my best," he said.

It was a drawn battle, and they both knew it. By tacit consent neither
referred to the matter again.




CHAPTER IV

A POINT OF HONOUR


"How like my husband!" said Mrs. Fielding impatiently, fidgeting up and
down the long drawing-room with a fretful frown on her pretty face. "Why
didn't you put a stop to it, Miss Moore? You might so easily have said
that the storm had upset me and I wasn't equal to a visitor at the
dinner-table to-night." She paused to look at herself in the gilded
mirror above the mantel-piece. "I declare I look positively haggard. I've
a good mind to go to bed. Only if I do--" she turned slowly and looked at
Juliet--"if I do, he is sure to be brutal about it--unless you tell him
you persuaded me."

Juliet, seated in a low chair, with a book on her lap, looked up with
a gleam of humour in her eyes. "But I am afraid I haven't persuaded
you," she said.

Mrs. Fielding shrugged her white shoulders impatiently. "Oh, of course
not! You only persuade me to do a thing when you know that it is the one
thing that I would rather die than do."

"Am I as bad as that?" said Juliet.

"Pretty nearly. You're coming to it. I know you are on his side all
the time. He knows it too. He wouldn't tolerate you for a moment if
you weren't."

"What a horrid accusation!" said Juliet, with a smile.

"The truth generally is horrid," said Mrs. Fielding. "How would you like
to feel that everyone is against you?"

"I don't know. I expect I should find a way out somehow. I shouldn't
quarrel," said Juliet. "Not with such odds as that!"

"How--discreet!" said Mrs. Fielding, with a sneer.

"Discretion is my watchword," smiled Juliet.

"And very wise too," said Green's voice in the doorway. "How do you do,
Mrs. Fielding? As I can't dress, I've been sent down to try and make my
peace with you for showing my face here at all. I hope you'll be lenient
for once, for really I've had a thorough bullying for my sins."

He came forward with the words. His bearing was absolutely easy though
neither he nor his hostess seemed to think of shaking hands.

She looked at him with a disdainful curve of the lips that could scarcely
have been described as a smile of welcome. "I imagine it would take a
good deal of that sort of thing to make much impression upon you, Mr.
Green," she said.

Green's eyes began to shine. He glanced at Juliet. "Really I am much more
inoffensive than you seem to think," he said. "I hope you are not going
to repeat the dose. I was hoping to secure your forgiveness for what
happened this afternoon. Believe me, no one regrets it more sincerely
than I do."

Mrs. Fielding drew herself together with a gesture of distaste. "Oh,
that! I have no desire whatever to discuss it with you. I have long
regarded your half-witted brother as a disgrace to the neighbourhood, and
my opinion is scarcely likely to be modified by what happened this
afternoon."

"How unfortunate!" said Green.

Again he glanced at Juliet. She lifted her eyes to his. "I am afraid I
haven't taken my share of the blame," she said. "But I think you know
that I am very sorry for Robin."

"You are always kind," he rejoined gravely.

"How could you be to blame, Miss Moore?" asked Mrs. Fielding.

Juliet turned towards her. "Because Robin and I are friends," she
explained simply. "He came here to look for me, and Jack ordered him off.
That was the origin of the trouble. And so--" she smiled--"Mr. Green
tells me it was my fault."

"He would," commented Mrs. Fielding.

She turned with the words as if Green's proximity were an offence to her,
and walked away to the window at the further end of the room.

In the slightly strained pause that followed, Juliet bent to fondle
Columbus who was sitting pressed against her and her book slid from her
lap to the ground. Green stooped swiftly and picked it up.

"What is it? May I look?"

She held out her hand for it. "It is _Marionettes_,--Dene Strange's
latest. Mrs. Fielding lent it to me."

He kept the book in his hand. "I thought you said you wouldn't read any
more of that man's stuff."

She knitted her brows a little. "Did I say so? I don't remember."

He looked down at her keenly. "You said you hated the man and his work."

She began to smile. "Well, I do--in certain moods. But I've got to read
him all the same. Everyone does."

"Surely you don't follow the crowd!" he said.

She laughed--her sweet, low laugh. "Surely I do! I'm one of them."

He made a sharp gesture. "That's just what you are not. I say, Miss
Moore, don't read this book! It won't do you any good, and it'll make
you very angry. You'll call it cynical, insincere, cold-blooded. It will
hurt your feelings horribly."

"I don't think so," said Juliet. "You forget,--I am no longer--a
marionette. I have come to life."

Again she held out her hand for the book. He gave it to her reluctantly.

"Don't read it!" he said.

She shook her head, still smiling. "No, Mr. Green, I'm not going to
let you censor my reading. I will tell you what I think of it next
time we meet."

"Don't!" he said again very earnestly.

But Juliet would not yield. She stooped again over Columbus and
fondled his ear.

Green stood looking down at her, his dark face somewhat grim, his eyes
extremely bright.

"I believe he's cross with us, Christopher," murmured Juliet. "Never
mind, old thing! We shall get over it if he doesn't. Being cross always
hurts oneself the most. We're--never cross, are we, Christopher? We
please ourselves and we please each other--always."

Columbus grunted appreciatively and leaned harder against her. He liked
to be included in the conversation.

Green suddenly bent and pulled the other ear. "You're a jolly lucky chap,
Columbus," he said. "I'll change places with you any day in the week."

Columbus smiled at him indulgently, and edged his nose onto his
mistress's knee. He knew his position was secure.

"Don't you listen to him, Christopher!" said Juliet. "He wouldn't be in
your place two minutes. If I dared to thwart him in anything, he'd turn
and rend me."

"He wouldn't," said Green decidedly. "Anyone else--perhaps, but his
mistress--never."

Columbus yawned. The topic did not interest him. But Juliet laughed
again, and for a moment her eyes glanced upwards, meeting the man's look.

"Is that a promise?" she asked lightly.

"My word of honour," he said.

"How generous!" said Juliet. "And how rash!"

Mrs. Fielding looked round from the window and spoke fretfully. "The
storm seems to have made it more oppressive than ever," she complained.
"I believe it is coming up again."

"I hope not," said Green.

Juliet got up quietly and moved to join her--a tall woman of gracious
outlines with the poise of a princess.

"You know all about everything," she said to him, in passing. "Come and
read the weather for us!"

He followed her. They stood together at the open French window, looking
out on to the stormy sunset.

"It isn't coming back," said Green, after a pause.

Mrs. Fielding gave him a brief, contemptuous glance. Juliet regarded him
more openly, a glint of mockery in her eyes.

"You are sure to be right," she said.

He made her a bow. "Many thanks, Miss Moore! I think I am on this
occasion at least. We shall have a fine day for the Graydown races
to-morrow."

"Are you keen on racing?" asked Juliet.

He laughed. "I've no time for frivolities of that sort."

"You could make time if you wanted to," observed Mrs. Fielding. "You are
free on Saturday."

"Am I?" said Green.

She challenged him in sudden exasperation. "Well, what do you do on your
off days?"

He considered for a moment. "I'll tell you what I'm doing to-morrow, if
you like," he said. "In the morning I hold a swimming class for all who
care to attend. In the afternoon I've got a cricket match. And in the
evening I'm running an open-air concert at High Shale with Ashcott."

"For those wretched miners!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielding.

He nodded. "Yes, and their wives and their babies. They are rather
amusing shows sometimes. We use native talent of course. I believe you
would be interested, Miss Moore."

"I am sure I should," said Juliet. "May I come to one some day?"

He faced her boldly. "Will you help at one--some day?"

"Oh, really!" broke in Mrs. Fielding. "That is too much. I am sure my
husband would never agree to that."

"I don't know why he shouldn't," said Juliet gently. "But the point
is--should I be any good?"

"You sing," said Green with confidence.

She smiled. "Who told you so?"

His brows worked humorously. "It's one of the things I know without being
told. Would you be afraid to venture yourself in that rough crowd with
only me to take care of you?"

"Not in the least," said Juliet.

"Thank you," he said. "You would certainly have no need to be. You would
have an immense reception."

"I am quite sure my husband would never allow it," said Mrs.
Fielding with a frown. "These High Shale people are so hopelessly
disreputable--such a drunken, lawless lot."

"But not beyond redemption," said Green quickly, "if anyone takes
the trouble."

She shrugged her shoulders. "There are not many people who have time to
waste over them. In any case, the responsibility lies at Lord
Wilchester's door--not ours."

"And as Lord Wilchester happens to be a rotter, they must go to the
wall," remarked Green.

"Well, it is no business of ours," maintained Mrs. Fielding. "I always
leave that sort of thing to the busybodies who enjoy it."

"What a good idea!" said Green. "Do you know I never thought of that?"

"Tell me about the cricket match!" Juliet said, intervening. "Who
is playing?"

He gave her a glance of quizzical understanding. "Oh, that's a village
affair too--Little Shale versus Fairharbour, most of them fisher-lads,
all of them sports. I have the honour to be captain of the Little
Shale team."

"You seem to be everything," she said.

"Jack of all trades!" sneered Mrs. Fielding.

Green laughed. "I was just going to say that."

"How original of you!" said Juliet. "Well, I hope you'll win."

"He is the sort of person who always comes out on top whether he wins or
loses," said Fielding, striding up the long room at the moment. "You've
not seen him play cricket yet, Miss Moore. He's a positive tornado on
the cricket-ground. To-morrow's Saturday, isn't it? Where are you
playing, Dick?"

His good-humour was evidently fully restored. He slapped a hand on
Dick's shoulder with the words. Mrs. Fielding's lips turned downwards at
the action.

"We are playing the Fairharbour crowd, sir, on Lord Saltash's ground,"
said Green. "It's in Burchester Park. You know the place don't you? It's
just above the town."

"Yes, yes, I know it. A fine place. Pity it doesn't belong to somebody
decent," said the squire.

Mrs. Fielding laughed unpleasantly. "Dear me! More wicked lords?"

Her husband looked at her with his quick frown. "I thought everybody
knew Saltash was a scoundrel. It's common talk that he's in Paris at this
moment entertaining that worthless jade, Lady Joanna Farringmore."

Juliet gave a violent start at the words. For a moment her face flamed
red, then went dead white--so white that she almost looked as if she
would faint. Then, in a very low voice, "It may be common talk," she
said, "but--I am quite sure--it isn't true."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the squire. "My dear Miss Moore, pray forgive
me! I forgot you knew her."

She smiled at him, still with that ashen face. "Yes, I know her. At
least--I used to. And--she may have been heartless--I think she was;--but
she wasn't--that."

"Not when you knew her perhaps," said Mrs. Fielding's scornful voice. She
had no sympathy with people who regarded it as a duty to stand up for
their unworthy friends. "But since you quarrelled with her yourself on
account of her disgraceful behaviour you are scarcely in a position to
defend her."

"No--I know," said Juliet, and she spoke nervously, painfully. "But--I
must defend her on--a point of honour."

She did not look at Green. Yet instantly and very decidedly he entered
the breach. "Quite so," he said. "We are all entitled to fair
play--though we don't always get it when our backs are turned. I take off
my hat to you, Miss Moore, for your loyalty to your friends."

She gave him a quick glance without speaking.

From the door the butler announced dinner, and they all turned.

"Miss Moore, I apologize," said the squire, and offered her his arm.

She took it, her hand not very steady. "Please forget it!" she said.

He smiled at her kindly as he led her from the room, and began to speak
of other things.

Green sauntered behind with his hostess. His eyes were extremely bright,
and he made no attempt to make conversation as he went.




CHAPTER V

THE WAY TO HAPPINESS


It was an unpleasant shock to Juliet on the following morning when
she went to Mrs. Fielding's room after breakfast to find her lying in
bed, pale and tear-stained, refusing morosely to partake of any
nourishment whatever.

Juliet always breakfasted alone, for the squire was in the habit of
taking his early ride first and coming in late for the meal. She usually
took a morning paper up with her with which to regale the mistress of the
house before she rose, but the first glance showed her that this
attention would be wholly unwelcome to-day. Even the letters that had
accompanied her breakfast tray were scattered unopened by her side.

"Why, what is the matter?" said Juliet.

"I've had--a wretched night," said Mrs. Fielding, and turned her face
into the pillow with a sob.

Her maid glanced at Juliet with raised brows, and indicated the untouched
breakfast with a shrug of helplessness.

Juliet came to the bedside. "What is it? Aren't you well?" she
questioned.

"No, I'm wretched--miserable!" The words came muffled with sobs.

Juliet looked round. "All right, Cox. You can go. I will ring when you
are wanted."

Cox went, leaving the despised breakfast behind her.

Juliet turned back to the bed, and found Mrs. Fielding weeping
unrestrainedly. She bent over her, discarding all ceremony. "My dear
girl, do stop!" she said. "What on earth is the matter? You won't get
over it all day if you go on like this."

"Of course I shan't get over it!" sobbed Mrs. Fielding indignantly. "I
never do. He knows that perfectly well. He knows--that when once I'm
down--it takes me days--weeks--to get up again."

"Oh, dear!" said Juliet. "It's a quarrel, is it?"

Mrs. Fielding raised herself with a furious movement and thrust out a
white arm on which the bruises of a fierce grip were mercilessly defined.
"That's how--he--quarrels!" she said bitterly.

Juliet drew down the loose night-dress sleeve with a gentle but very
decided hand. "Don't let anyone else see it!" she said. "And don't tell
me any more unless you're sure--quite sure--you want me to know!"

"Why shouldn't you know?" said Mrs. Fielding pettishly through her
falling tears. "It's your fault in a way. At least it wouldn't have
happened if you hadn't been here--you and that horrid little cad of a
schoolmaster."

"Oh, don't put it like that!" said Juliet. "It's such a pity to offend
everybody at once. You really mustn't cry any more or you'll be ill. I'm
sure it isn't worth that."

"I don't care if I die!" cried Mrs. Fielding, with a fresh burst of
weeping. "I'm miserable--miserable! And nobody cares."

She flung herself down upon the pillow in such a paroxysm of hysterical
sobbing that Juliet actually was alarmed. She stood beside her, impotent,
unable to make herself heard, and wondering what to do. She had never
before looked upon such an abandonment of distress as she now beheld,
and since Mrs. Fielding was obviously beyond all reasoning or consolation
she was powerless to cope with it. She could only stand and wait for the
storm to spend itself.

It seemed, however, to increase rather than to abate, and she was
beginning to contemplate recalling Cox to her assistance when to her
astonishment the door suddenly opened, and Fielding himse

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/11520