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?”