A wonderful summer evening followed the sultry day. The sun sank gloriously behind High Shale, and a soft breeze blew in from the sea.

On the slope of the hill behind the lighthouse and above the miners' village there stood an old thatched barn, and about this a knot of men and youths loitered, smoking and talking in a desultory, discontented fashion. On the other side of the barn a shrill cackling proclaimed the presence of some of the feminine portion of the community, and the occasional squall of a baby or a squeal of a bigger child testified to the fact that the greater part of the village population awaited the entertainment which Green contrived to give on the first Saturday of every month.

He had started these concerts two winters before down in the village of Little Shale, and they had originally been for men and boys only, but the women had grumbled so loudly at their exclusion that Green had very soon realized the necessity of extending a welcome to them also. So now they flocked in a body to his support, even threatening to crowd out the men in the winter evenings when he had to assemble his audience at the Village Club at Little Shale. But in the summer, as a concession to High Shale, he held his concerts, whenever feasible, up on the hill, and practically the whole of High Shale village came to them. Little Shale was also well represented, but he always felt that he was in closer touch with the miners on these occasions, when he met them on their own ground.

The two villages were apt to eye one another with scant sympathy, the fisher population of the one and the mining population of the other having little in common beyond the liquor which they uniformly sought at The Three Tuns by the shore. Green never permitted any bickering, and they were all alike in their respect for him, but a species of armed neutrality which was very far removed from comradeship existed between them. Fights at The Three Tuns were by no means of unusual occurrence and the miners of High Shale were invariably spoken of with wholesale contempt by the men along the shore.

But, thanks to Green's untiring efforts, they met on common ground at his concerts, and any member of the audience who dared to commit any breach of the peace on any of these occasions was summarily dealt with by Green himself. He knew how to keep his men in hand. There was not one of them who ever ventured to question his supremacy. He ruled them, not one of them could have said how. Ashcott, the manager of the mine, who battled in vain against the rising spirit of disorder and rebellion among them, was wont to describe his influence over them as black magic. Whatever its source it was certainly unique. None but Dick Green could spring from the platform, seize a delinquent by his collar or the scruff of his neck, and run him, practically unresisting, out of the assembly. His lightning decisions were never questioned. His language, which could be forcible upon occasion, never met with any retort. The men seemed to recognize instinctively that it was useless to stand up to him. He could have compelled them blindfold and with his hands behind him.

It was this quality in him, this dynamic force, restrained yet always somehow in action, that had affected Juliet so strangely in the beginning of their acquaintance. Like these rough miners and fisher-folk she could not have said wherein the attraction lay, but she recognized in him that inner fire called genius, and it drew her unaccountably, irresistibly. Whatever the sphere to which he had been born, he was a man created to lead, to overcome obstacles, to wrest victory from failure,—a man who possessed the rare combination of a highly sensitive temperament and a practically invincible courage—a man who could handle the great forces of life with the fearless certainty of the born conqueror.

Yes, he attracted her, undoubtedly he attracted her. He stirred her to an interest which she had believed herself too old, too jaded with the ways of the world, ever to feel again. But she did not want to yield to the attraction. She wanted to hold aloof for a space. She had come to this quiet corner of the world in search of peace. She wanted to avoid the problems of life, to get back her poise, to become an onlooker and no longer a competitor in the maddening race from which she had so lately withdrawn herself. She was willing to be interested, she already was deeply interested, but only as a spectator, so she told herself. She would not be drawn in against her will. She would stand aside and watch.

It was in this mood that she drove off with the squire on the way to the open-air concert on the High Shale bluff on that magic June evening. Mrs. Fielding was too weary after the many emotions of the day to accompany them, but they left her in a tranquil frame of mind, and the squire was in an unusually good humour. Though he had small liking for the High Shale village people, it pleased him that Juliet should take an interest in Green's enterprises, eccentric though they might be. And he considered that she deserved a treat after her diplomatic handling of a very difficult situation that morning.

"Might as well call and see if Dick would like a lift," he said, as they neared the gates. "We've got to pass his door. I'll send Jack in."

But when they stopped at the school-house gate, a humped, familiar figure was leaning upon it, and Jack flung an imperious question without descending.

The squire's face darkened at the sight. "Here's that unspeakable baboon
Robin!" he growled.

Robin paid about as much attention to his brother's curt query as he might have bestowed upon the buzzing of a fly. His dark eyes below his shaggy thatch of hair were fixed, deeply shining, upon Juliet.

Jack muttered an impatient ejaculation under his breath and flung himself out of the car. Before Juliet could speak a word to intervene, he had given the gate on which Robin leant a push that sent the boy backwards with considerable force on the grass while he himself went up the path to the house at a run.

"Oh, what a shame!" said Juliet, a quick vibration of anger in her deep voice.

She leaned forward sharply to open the door and spring out, but in a second Fielding's hand caught hers, holding her back.

"No, no! Leave the young beggar alone! He's none the worse. He can pick himself up again. Ah, and here comes Dick! He'll manage him!"

Robin was indeed struggling to his feet with a furious bellowing that might have been heard on the shore. But Dick was quicker than he. He came down the path, as it seemed in a single bound. He took Robin by his swaying arms and steadied him. He spoke, quickly and decidedly, and the roaring protest died down to a snarling, sobbing sound like the crying of a wounded animal. Then, still holding him, Dick turned towards the car at the gate. And Juliet saw that he was white with passion. The fierce blaze of his eyes was a thing she would not soon forget.

He spoke with twitching lips. "No, sir. I'm not coming, thanks. I shall go on foot over the down. It's only a quarter of the distance that way." He drew Robin aside at the sound of Jack's approach behind him, but he did not look at him. And Robin became suddenly and terribly silent. He was quivering all over like a dog that is held back from his prey.

Jack gave him a look of contempt as he strode past and returned to his seat at the wheel. And Juliet awoke to the fact that like Robin she was trembling from head to foot.

The car shot forward. She saw the two figures no more. But the memory of Green's face went with her, its pallor, and the awfulness of his eyes—the red flame of his fury. Robin's unrestrained wrath was of small account beside it. She felt as if she had never seen anger before that moment.

She scarcely heard the squire's caustic remarks concerning Robin. She was as one who had touched a live wire, and her whole being tingled with the shock. The hot glitter of those onyx eyes had been to her as the sudden revelation of a destroying force, fettered indeed, but how appalling if once set free!

She looked forward with a curious dread to seeing him again. She wondered if the man who drove the car so recklessly had the faintest suspicion of the storm he had stirred up. But surely he knew Dick in all his moods! He had probably encountered it before. They sped on through the fragrant summer night, and she talked at random, hardly knowing what she said. If the squire noticed her preoccupation, he made no comment. He had conceived a great respect for Juliet.

They neared their destination at last, and Jack performed what the squire called his favorite circus-trick, racing the car to the top of the towering cliff and stopping dead at the edge of a great immensity of sea and stars.

Again Juliet drew a deep breath of sheer marvelling delight, speaking no word, held spell-bound by the wonder of the night.

"We needn't hurry," Fielding said. "They won't be starting yet."

So for a space they remained as though caught between earth and heaven, silently drinking in the splendour.

After a long pause she spoke. "Do you often come here?"

"Not now," he said. Then, as she glanced at him: "I used to in the days of my youth—the long past days."

And she knew by his tone, by the lingering of his words, that he had not always come alone.

She asked no more, and presently the jaunty notes of a banjo floating up the grassy slope told them that Green's entertainment had begun.

They left the car at the top of the rise, and walked down over the springy turf towards the old barn about which Dick's audience were collected. Two hurricane lamps and a rough deal table were all he had in the way of stage property. But she was yet to learn that this man relied upon surroundings and circumstances not at all. As she herself had said, possibly the torch of genius burned brightest in dark places, for it was certainly genius upon which she looked to-night.

He sat on the edge of the deal table with one leg crossed over his knee, his dark face thrown into strong relief, intent, eager, with a vitality that seemed to make it almost luminous. From the crowd that watched him there came not a sound. The thought crossed Juliet's mind that the instrument he played so cunningly might have been a harp from a fairy palace. For there was magic in the air. He played with a delicacy that seemed to wind itself in threads of gold about the inner fibres of the soul. They listened to him as men bewitched.

When the music ended, a great noise went up—shouts and whistles and cat-calls. They were wild for more. But Green knew the value of a reserve. He laughed away the encores with a careless "Presently!" and called a young miner to him for a song. The lad sang and Green accompanied, and again Juliet marvelled at the amazing facility of his performance. He seemed to be able to adapt the instrument to every mood or tone. The boy's voice was rough and untrained, but it held a certain appeal and by sheer intuition—comradeship as it seemed—Green brought it home to the hearers. The man's unfailing responsiveness was a revelation to her. She believed it was the secret of his charm.

When the song was ended, a fisherman came forward and danced a hornpipe on the table, again to the thrumming of the banjo, without which nothing seemed complete. It was while this was in progress that a thick-set, somewhat bulletheaded man came up and addressed the squire by name.

"We don't often see you here, Mr. Fielding."

The squire turned. "Hullo, Ashcott. Your lambs are in force to-night. How are they behaving themselves?"

"Pretty fair," said Ashcott. "They're getting the strike rot like the rest of the world. We shan't hold 'em for ever. If any of the Farringmore lot turned up here, I wouldn't answer for 'em. Lord Wilchester talked of motoring down the other day, bringing friends if you please to see the mine, I warned him off—the damn' fool! Simply asking for trouble, as I told him. 'Well, what's the matter?' he said. 'What do they want?' 'They'd like houses instead of pigsties for one thing,' I said. And he laughed at that. 'Oh, let 'em go to the devil!' he said. 'I haven't got any money to spare for luxuries of that kind.' So far as that goes I believe he is hard up, but then look at the way they live! They'd need to be multi-millionaires to keep it up."

The man's speech was crude, even brutal, and the girl on Fielding's other side shivered a little and drew a pace away. It was very evident on which side his sympathies lay. There was more than a tinge of the street ranter in his utterance. She was glad that Fielding spared her an introduction.

She tried to turn her attention back to the entertainment, but the coarse words hung in her memory like an evil cloud. They recalled Green's brief condemnation of the previous evening. Evidently his point of view was the same. He regarded the whole social system as evil. Had not the squire told her that he wanted to reform the world?

The evening wore on, and with unfaltering resource Dick Green kept the interest of his audience from flagging. He chose his assistants with insight and skill, and every item on his program scored a success. His banjo was in almost continuous demand throughout, but finally, just at the end, he laid it aside.

He took something from his pocket; what it was Juliet could not see, but she caught the gleam of metal in the lamp-light, and in a moment a great buzz of pleasure spread through the crowd. And then it began—such music as she had never dreamed of—such music as surely was never fluted save from the pipes of Pan. A long, sweet, thrilling note like the call of a nightingale, starting far away, drawing swiftly nearer, nearer, till she felt as if it ended against her heart, and then all the joy of spring, of youth, of hope, poured forth in an amazing ecstasy of silver sound—showers of fairy notes like the dancing of tiny feet or the lightest patter of summer rain that ever fell upon opening leaves—and the gold-flecked sunshine that shimmered in the crystal dawning of a day new-born. Afterwards there came the sound of waterfalls and laughing streams and the calling of fairy voices, the tinkle of fairy laughter, and then the sea and shoaling water—shoaling water—breaking in a million sparkles over the rocks of an enchanted strand!

And it was to her alone that that wonder-music spoke. She and he were wandering alone together along that fairy shore where every sea-shell gleamed like pearl and every wave broke iridescent at their feet. The sun shone in the sky for them alone, and the caves were mystic palaces of delight that awaited their coming. And once it seemed to her that he drew her close, and she felt his kisses on her lips….

Ah, surely this was the midsummer madness of which they had spoken! It was a vision that could not last, but the wonder of it—ah, the wonder of it!—she would carry for ever in her heart.

It ended at length, but so softly, so tenderly, that, spellbound, she never knew when lingering sound became enduring silence. She awoke as it were from a long dream and knew that her heart was beating with a wild and poignant longing that was pain. Then there arose a great shouting, and instinctively she laid her hand on Fielding's arm and drew him away.

"Had enough?" he asked.

She nodded. Somehow for the moment she could find no words. She had a feeling as of unshed tears at her throat. Ah, what had moved him to play to her like that? And why did it hurt her so?

She moved back up the grassy slope still with that curious sense of pain. Something had happened to her, something had pierced her. By that strange and faun-like power of his he had reached out and touched her inmost soul, and she knew as she went away that she was changed. He had cast a glittering spell upon her, and nothing could ever be the same again.

After a space she spoke at random and Fielding made reply. With the instinct of self-defence she maintained some species of casual conversation during their stroll back to the waiting car, but she never had the vaguest recollection afterwards as to what passed between them.

She was thankful to be swooping back again through the summer night. An urgent desire for solitude was upon her. All her throbbing pulses cried out for it. Was it but yesterday—but yesterday that she had felt so safe? And now—

Later, alone in her room at the Court, she leaned from her open window seeking with an almost frantic intensity to recover the peace that had been hers. How had she lost it? She could not say. Was it the mere piping of a flute that had reft it from her? She wanted to laugh at herself, but could not. It was too absurd, too fantastic, for everyday, prosaic existence, that rhapsody of the starlight, but to her it had been pure magic. In it she had heard the call of a man's being, seeking hers, and by every hidden chord that had vibrated in answer she knew that he had not called in vain. That was the knowledge that pierced her—the knowledge that she was caught—against her will,—still wildly struggling for freedom—but caught.

It had happened so suddenly, so amazingly. Yesterday she had been free—only yesterday—Or stay! Perhaps even then the net had been about her feet, and he had known it. How otherwise had he spoken so intimately—dared so much?

She drew a long, deep breath, recalling his look, his touch, his voice. Ah! Midsummer madness indeed! But she could not stay to face it. She must go. The way was still open behind her. She would escape as she had come, a fugitive from the force that pursued her so relentlessly. She would not suffer herself to be made a captive. She would go.

Again she drew a long breath, but curiously it broke, as if a sharp spasm had gripped her heart. She stood, struggling with herself. And then suddenly she dropped upon her knees by the sill with her arms flung wide and her head with its cloudy mass of hair bowed low.

"O God! O God!" she whispered convulsively. "Save me from this! Help me to go—while I can! I am so tired—so tired!"