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."