That Saturday night concert at High Shale entailed a greater effort on Dick's part than any that had preceded it. He forced himself to make it a success, but when it was over he was conscious of an overwhelming weariness that weighed him down like a physical burden.

He said good-night to the men, and prepared to depart with a feeling that he was nearing the end of his endurance. It was not soothing to nerves already on edge to be waylaid by Ashcott and made the unwilling recipient of gloomy forebodings.

"We shan't hold 'em much longer," the manager said. "They're getting badly out of hand. There's talk of sending a deputation to Lord Wilchester or—failing him—Ivor Yardley, the K.C. chap who is in with him in this show."

"Yardley!" Dick uttered the name sharply.

"Yes, ever met him? He took over a directorship when he got engaged to Lord Wilchester's sister—Lady Joanna Farringmore. They're rather pinning their hopes on him, it seems. Do you know him at all?"

"I've met him—once," Dick said. "Went to him for advice—on a matter of business."

"Any good?" asked Ashcott.

"Oh yes, shrewd enough. Hardest-headed man at the Bar, I believe. I didn't know he was a director of this show. They won't get much out of him."

"I fancy they're going to ask you to draw up a petition," said Ashcott.

"Me!" Dick turned on him in a sudden blaze of anger. "I'll see 'em damned first!" he said.

Ashcott shrugged his shoulders. "It's your affair. You're the only man who has any influence with 'em. I'm sick of trying to keep the peace."

Dick checked his indignation. "Poor devils! They certainly have some cause for grievance, but I'm not going to draw up their ultimatum for them. I've no objection to speaking to Yardley or any other man on their behalf, but I'm hanged if I'll be regarded as their representative. They'll make a strike-leader of me next."

"Well, they're simmering," Ashcott said, as he prepared to depart. "They'll boil over before long. If they don't find a responsible representative they'll probably run amuck and get up to mischief."

"Oh, man, stop croaking!" Dick said with weary irritation and went away down the hill.

He took the cliff-path though the night was dark with storm-clouds. Somehow, instinctively, his feet led him thither. There were no nightingales singing now, and the gorse had long since faded in the fierce heat of summer. The sea lay leaden far below him, barely visible in the dimness. And there was no star in the sky.

Heavily he tramped over the ground where Juliet had lingered on that night of magic in the spring, and as he went, he told himself that he had lost her. Whatever the outcome of to-day's happenings, she would never be the same to him again. She had passed out of his reach. Her own world had claimed her again and there could be no return. He recalled the regret in her eyes at parting. Surely—most surely—she had known that that was the end. For her the midsummer madness was over, burnt away like the glory of the gorse-bushes about him. With a conviction that was beyond all reason he knew that they had come to a parting of the ways.

And there was no bond between them, no chain but that which his love had forged. She had pleaded to retain her freedom, and now with bitter intuition he knew wherefore. She had always realized that to which he in his madness had been persistently blind. She had known that there were obstacles insurmountable between them and the happy consummation of their love. She had faced the fact that the glory would depart.

Again he felt the clinging of her arms as he had felt it only that afternoon. Again against his lips there rose her quivering whisper, "Just for to-day, Dick! Just for to-day!" Yes, she had known even then. Even then for her the glory had begun to fade.

He clenched his hands in sudden fierce rebellion. It was unbearable. He would not endure it. This stroke of destiny—he would fight it with all the strength of his manhood. He would overthrow this nameless barrier that had arisen between them. He would sacrifice all—all he had—to reach her. Somehow—whatever the struggle might cost—he would clasp her again, would hold her against all the world.

And then—like a poisoned arrow out of the darkness—another thought pierced him. What if she were indeed of those who loved for a space and passed smiling on? What if the fatal taint of the world from which she had come to him had touched her also, withering the heart in her, making true love a thing impossible? What if she had indeed been fashioned in the same mould as the worthless woman whom she sought to defend?

But that was unthinkable, intolerable. He flung the evil suggestion from him, but it left a burning wound behind. There was no escape from the fact that she was on terms of intimacy with the man with whom that woman's name had been shamefully associated. And—remembering the discomfiture she had betrayed at their meeting—he told himself bitterly that she would have given much to have concealed that intimacy had it been possible.

But here his loyalty cried out that he was wronging her. Juliet—his Juliet of the steadfast eyes and low, sincere voice—was surely incapable of double dealing! Whatever her life in the past had been, however frivolous, however artificial, it had been given to him—perhaps to him alone—to know her as she was. A great wave of self-reproach went over him. How had he dared to doubt her?

The sea moaned with a dreary sound along the shore. A few heavy drops of rain fell around him. Mechanically he quickened his pace. He came at length down the steep cliff-path to the gate that led to the village. And here to his surprise a shuffling footstep told him of the presence of another human being out in the desolate darkness. Dimly he discerned a bulky shape leaning against the rail.

He came up to it. "Robin!" he said sharply.

A low voice answered him in startled accents. "Oh, Dicky! I thought you were never coming!"

"What are you doing here?" Dick said.

He took the boy by the shoulder with the words and Robin cowered away.

"Don't be cross! Dicky, please don't be cross! I only came to look for you," he said with nervous incoherence. "I didn't mean to be out late. I couldn't help it. Don't be cross!"

But Dick was implacable. "You know you've no business out at this hour," he said. "I warned you last time—when you went to The Three Tuns—" He paused abruptly. "Have you been to The Three Tuns to-night?"

"No!" said Robin eagerly.

Dick's hand pressed upon him. "Is that the truth?"

Robin became incoherent again. "I only came to meet you. I didn't think you'd be so late. And it was so hot to-night. And my head ached." He broke off. "Dicky, you're hurting me!"

"You have told me a lie," Dick said.

Robin shrank at his tone. "How did you know?" he whispered awestruck.

Dick did not answer. He shifted his hold from Robin's shoulder to his arm and turned him about. Robin went with him, shuffling his feet and trembling.

Dick led him in grim silence down the path to the village-road, past the Ricketts' cottage, now in darkness, up the hill beyond that led to the school.

Robin went with him submissively enough, but he stumbled several times on the way. As they neared the end of the journey he began to talk again anxiously, propitiatingly.

"I didn't mean to go, Dicky, but I was so hot and thirsty. And I met Jack and I went in with him. There were a lot of fellows there and Jack treated me, but I didn't have very much. My head ached so, and I sat down in a corner and went to sleep till it was closing time. Then old Swag made me get out, so I came to wait for you. I didn't hit him or anything, Dicky. I was quite quiet all the while. So you won't be cross, will you,—not like last time?"

"I am going to punish you if that's what you mean," Dick said, as he opened the garden-gate.

Robin shrank again, shivering like a frightened dog. "But, Dicky, I only—I only—"

"Broke the rule and lied about it," his brother said uncompromisingly.
"You know the punishment for that."

Robin attempted no further appeal. He went silently into the house and blundered up to his room. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to pay the penalty—of which Dick's wrath was infinitely the hardest part to bear.

He crouched down on the floor by the bed to wait. The light from the passage shone in through the half-open door and the great lamp at the lodge-gates of the Court opposite, which was kept burning all night, glared in at the unblinded window, but there was no light in the room. There was something almost malignant to Robin's mind about the searching brilliance of this lamp. He hid his eyes from it, huddling his face in the bed-clothes, listening intently the while for Dick's coming but hearing only the dull thumping of his own heart.

There was no one in the house except the two brothers. A woman came in every day from the village to do the work of the establishment. Now that Jack had found quarters elsewhere there was not a great deal to be done since Robin was accustomed also to making himself useful in various ways. It occurred to him suddenly as he crouched there waiting that Dick had been too hurried to eat much supper before his departure for High Shale that evening. The thought had been in his brain before, but subsequent events had dislodged it. Now, with every nerve alert and pricking with suspense, it returned to him very forcibly. Dicky was hungry perhaps—or consumed with thirst, as he himself had been. And he would certainly go empty to bed unless he, Robin, plucked up courage to go down and wait upon him.

It needed considerable courage, for his instinct was always to hide when he had incurred Dick's anger. Judicial though it invariably was, it was the most terrible thing the world held for him. It shook him to the depths, and to go down and confront it again with the penalty still unpaid was for a long time more than he could calmly contemplate. But as the minutes crept on and still Dick did not come, it was gradually borne in upon him that this, and this alone, was the thing that must be done. It was his job, forced upon him by an inexorable fate. Dick would probably be much more angry with him for doing it, but somehow in a vague, unreasoning fashion he realized that it had got to be done.

Even then it took him a long time to screw himself up to the required pitch of nervous energy required. He ached for the sound of Dick's step on the stairs, but it did not come. And so at last he knew there was no help for it. Whatever the cost, he must fulfil the task that had been laid upon him.

With intense reluctance he uncovered his face, flinching from the stark glare of the lamp across the road, and dragged himself to his feet. It was difficult to move without noise, but he made elaborate efforts to do so. He reached the head of the stairs and hung there listening.

Had he heard a movement below he would have stumbled headlong back to cover, but no sound of any sort reached him. The compelling force urged him afresh. He gripped the stair-rail and crept downward like a stealthy baboon.

The stairs creaked alarmingly. More than once he paused, prepared for precipitate retreat, but still he heard no sound, and gradually a certain desperate hope came to him. Perhaps Dicky was asleep! Perhaps the power that drove him would be satisfied if he collected some things on a tray and left them in the little hall for Dicky to find when he finally came up! If this could be done—and he could get back safe to the sheltering darkness before he found out! He would not mind the subsequent caning, if only he need not meet Dicky face to face again beforehand. Dicky's eyes when they looked at him sternly were anguish to his soul. And they certainly would not hold any kindness for him until the punishment was over. So argued poor Robin's anxious brain as he reached the foot of the stairs and stood a moment under the lamp dimly burning there, summoning strength to creep past the open door of the dining-room.

A candle was flickering on the table, so he was sure Dick must be there. Would he see him pass? Would he call him in? Robin's heart raced with terror at the thought. But no! The urging force drove him in sickening apprehension past the door, and still there was no sound.

He was at the kitchen-door at the end of the passage, his fingers fumbling at the latch when suddenly he remembered that he had no candle. There was no candle to be had! The only one available downstairs was the one Dick had taken into the dining-room. He could not go upstairs again to get another. He had no matches wherewith to explore the kitchen. He stood struck motionless by this fresh problem.

But Dicky was doubtless asleep or he must have heard those creaking stairs! Then there was still a chance. He might creep into the room and take the candle without waking him. He was gaining confidence by the prolonged silence. Dicky must certainly be fast asleep.

With considerably greater steadiness than he had yet achieved he returned to the open door and peeped stealthily in.

Yes, Dick was there. He had flung himself down at the table on which he had set the candle, and he was lying across it with his head on his arms. Asleep of course! That could be the only explanation of such an attitude. Yet Robin in the act of advancing, stopped in sudden doubt with a scared backward movement, his eyes upon one of Dick's hands that was clenched convulsively and quivering as if he were in pain. It certainly did not look like the hand of a man asleep.

The next moment Robin's ungainly form had knocked against the door-handle and Dick was sitting upright looking at him. His face was grey, he looked unutterably tired, his mouth had the stark grimness of the man who endures, asking nothing of Fate.

"Hullo, boy!" he said. "Why aren't you in bed?" Then seeing Robin's unmistakably hang-dog air, "Oh, I forgot! Go on upstairs! I'm coming."

Robin turned about like a kicked dog. But the driving force stopped him on the threshold. He stood a second or two, then turned again with a species of sullen courage.

"May I have the candle?" he said, not looking at Dick.

"What for?" said Dick. "Haven't you got one upstairs?"

Robin stood a moment or two debating with himself, then made a second movement to go. "All right. I'll fetch it."

"Wait a minute!" Dick's voice compelled. "What do you want a candle down here for?"

Robin backed against the door-post with a kind of heavy defiance. "Want to get something—out of the kitchen," he muttered.

"What do you want to get?" said Dick.

Robin was silent, stubbornly, insistently silent, the fingers of one hand working with agitated activity.

"Robin!"

It was the voice of authority. He had to respond to it. He made a lumbering gesture towards the speaker, but his eyes remained obstinately lowered under the shag of hair that hung over his forehead.

Dick sat for a few seconds looking at him, then with a sudden sigh that caught him unawares he got up.

"What did you come down for? Tell me!" he said.

His tone was absolutely quiet, but something in his utterance or the sigh that preceded it—or possibly some swiftly-piercing light of intuition—seemed to send a galvanizing current through Robin. With clumsy impulsiveness he came to Dick and stood before him.

"I was going—to get you—something to eat," he said, speaking with tremendous effort. "You must be—pretty near starving—and I forgot." He paused to fling a nervous look upwards. "I thought you were asleep. I didn't know—or I wouldn't have done it. I—didn't mean to get in the way." His voice broke oddly. He began to tremble. "I'll go now," he said.

But Dick's hand came out, detaining him. "You came down to get me food?" he said.

"Yes," muttered Robin, with his head down. "Thought I'd—put it in the hall—so you'd find it—before you came up."

Dick stood silent for a space, looking at him. His eyes were very gentle and the grimness had gone from his mouth, but Robin could not see that. He stood humped and quivering, expectant of rebuke.

But he recognized the change when Dick spoke. "Thought you'd provide me with the necessary strength to hammer you, eh?" he said, and suddenly his arm went round the misshapen shoulders; he gave Robin a close squeeze. "Thanks, old chap," he said.

Robin looked up then. The adoring devotion of a dumb animal was in his eyes. He said nothing, being for the moment beyond words.

Dick let him go. A clock on the mantelpiece was striking twelve. "You get to bed, boy!" he said. "I don't want anything to eat, thanks all the same." He paused a moment, then held out his hand. "Good-night!"

It was tacit forgiveness for his offence, and as such Robin recognized it. Yet as he felt the kindly grasp his eyes filled with tears.

"I'm—I'm sorry, Dicky," he stammered.

"I'm sorry too," Dick said. "But that won't undo it. For heaven's sake, Robin, never lie to me again! There! Go to bed! I'm going myself as soon as I've had a smoke. Good-night!"

It was a definite dismissal, and Robin turned away and went stumblingly from the room.

His brother looked after him with a queer smile in his eyes. It was Juliet who had taught Robin to say he was sorry. He threw himself into an easy-chair and lighted a pipe. Perhaps after all in his weariness he had exaggerated the whole matter. Perhaps—after all—she might yet find that she loved him enough to cast her own world aside. Recalling her last words to him, he told himself that he had been too quick to despair. For she loved him—she loved him! Not all the fashionable cynics her world contained could alter that fact.

A swift wave of exultation went through him, combating his despair. However heavy the odds,—however formidable the obstacles—he told himself he would win—he would win!

Going upstairs a little later, he was surprised to hear a low sound coming from Robin's room. He had thought the boy would have been in bed and asleep some time since. He stopped at the door to listen.

The next moment he opened it and quietly entered, for Robin was sobbing as if his heart would break.

There was no light in the room save that which shone from the park-gates opposite and the candle he himself carried. Robin was sunk in a heap against the bed still fully dressed. He gave a great start at his brother's coming, shrinking together in a fashion that seemed to make him smaller. His sobbing ceased on the instant. He became absolutely still, his claw-like hands rigidly gripped on the bedclothes, his face wholly hidden. He did not even breathe during the few tense seconds that Dick stood looking down at him. He might have been a creature carved in granite. Then Dick set down his candle, went to him, sat on the low bed, and pulled the shaggy head on to his knee.

"What's the matter, old chap?" he said.

All the tension went out of Robin at his touch. He clung to him in voiceless distress.

Dick's heart smote him. Why had he left the boy so long? He laid a very gentle hand upon him.

"Come, old chap!" he said. "Get a hold on yourself! What's it all about?"

Robin's shoulders heaved convulsively; his hold tightened. He murmured some inarticulate words.

Dick bent over him. "What, boy? What? I can't hear. You haven't been up to any mischief, have you? Robin, have you?" A sudden misgiving assailed him. "You haven't hurt anybody? Not Jack, for instance?"

"No," Robin said. But he added a moment later with a concentrated passion that sounded inexpressibly vindictive, "I hate him! I do hate him! I wish he was dead!"

"Why?" Dick said. "What has he been doing?"

But Robin burrowed lower and made no answer.

Dick sat for a space in silence, waiting for him to recover himself. He knew very well that he had good reason for his rooted dislike for Jack. It was useless to attempt any argument on that point. But when Robin had grown calmer, he returned to the charge very quietly but with determination.

"What has Jack been doing or saying? Tell me! I've got to know."

Robin stirred uneasily. "Don't want to tell you, Dicky," he said.

Dick's hand pressed a little upon him. "You must tell me," he said. "When did you meet him?"

Robin hesitated in obvious reluctance. "It was after supper," he said. "My head ached, and I went outside, and he came down the drive. And he—and he laughed about—about you coming home alone from Burchester, and said—said that your game was up anyhow. And I didn't know what he meant, Dicky—" Robin's arms suddenly clung closer—"but I got angry, because I hate him to talk about you. And I—I went for him, Dicky." His voice dropped on a shamed note, and he became silent.

"Well?" Dick said gravely. "What happened then?"

Very unwillingly Robin responded to his insistence. "He got hold of me—so that I couldn't hurt him—and then he said—he said—" A great sob rose in his throat choking his utterance.

"What did he say?"

There was a certain austerity in Dick's question. Robin shivered as it reached him.

With difficulty he struggled on. "Said that only—a fool—like me—could help knowing that—you hadn't—a chance—with any woman—so long as—so long as—" He choked again and sank into quivering silence.

Dick's hand found the rough head and patted it very tenderly. "But you're not fool enough to take what Jack says seriously, are you?" he said.

Robin stifled a sob. "He said that—afterwards," he whispered. "And he took me along to The Three Tuns—to make me forget it."

"You actually drank with him after that!" Dick said.

"I didn't know what I was doing, Dicky," he make apologetic answer. "It—knocked the wind out of me. You see, I—I'd never thought of that before."

He began to whimper again. Dick swallowed down something that tried to escape him.

"A bit of an ass, aren't you, Robin?" he said instead. "You know as well as I do that there isn't a word of truth in it. Anyhow—the woman I love—isn't—that sort of woman."

Robin shifted his position uneasily. There was that in the words that vaguely stirred him. Dick had never spoken in that strain before. Slowly, with a certain caution, he lifted his tear-stained face and peered up at his brother in the fitful candle-light.

"You do—want to marry Miss Moore then, Dicky?" he asked diffidently.

Dick looked straight back at him; his eyes shone with a sombre gleam that came and went. For several seconds he sat silent, then very steadily he spoke.

"Yes, I want her all right, Robin, but there are some pretty big obstacles in the way. I may get over them—and I may not. Time will prove."

His lips closed upon the words, and became again a single hard line. His look went beyond Robin and grew fixed. The boy watched him dumbly with awed curiosity.

Suddenly Dick moved, gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him upwards. "There! Go to bed!" he said. "And don't take any notice of what Jack says for the future! Don't fight him either! Understand? Leave him alone!"

Robin blundered up obediently. Again there looked forth from his eyes the dog-like worship which he kept for Dick alone. "I'll do—whatever you say, Dicky," he said earnestly. "I—I'd die for you—I would!" He spoke with immense effort, and all his heart was in the words.

Dick smiled at him quizzically. "Instead of which I only want you to show a little ordinary common or garden sense," he said. "Think you can do that for me?"

"I'll try, Dicky," he said humbly.

"Yes, all right. You try!" Dick said, and got up, more moved than he cared to show. He turned to go, but paused to light Robin's candle from his own. "And don't forget I'm—rather fond of you, my boy!" he said, with a brief smile over his shoulder as he went away.

No, Robin was not likely to forget that, seeing that Dick's love for him was his safeguard from all evil, and his love for Dick was the mainspring of his life. But—though his development was stunted and imperfect—there were certain facts of existence which he was beginning slowly but surely to grasp. And one of these—before but dimly suspected—he had realized fully to-night, a fact beyond all questioning learnt from Dick's own lips.

Dick's words: "The woman I love," had sunk deep—deep into his soul. And he knew with that intuition which cannot err that his love for Juliet was the greatest thing life held for him—or ever could hold again.

And the driving force gripped Robin's soul afresh as he lay wide-eyed to the smothering gloom of the night. Whatever happened—whoever suffered—Dicky must have his heart's desire.