A faint flush of indignation crept up under the warm pallor of Sara’s skin.  Then, a sudden thought striking her, she asked—­

“Who is that playing the violin?”

Mentally she envisioned a pair of sensitive, virile hands, lean and brown, with the short, well-kept nails that any violinist needs must have—­the contradictory hands which had aroused her interest on the journey to Monkshaven.

“I don’t hear no one playing,” replied the man stolidly.  She felt certain he was lying, but he gave her no opportunity for further interrogation, for he continued briskly—­

“Come now, miss, please to move off from here.  Trespassers aren’t allowed.”

Sara spoke with a quiet air of dignity.

“Certainly I’ll go,” she said.  “I’m sorry.  I had no idea that I was trespassing.”

The man’s truculent manner softened, as, with the intuition of his kind, he recognized in the composed little apology the utterance of one of his “betters.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, miss,” he said, with a considerable accession of civility, “but it’s as much as my place is worth to allow a trespasser here on Far End.”

Sara nodded.

“You’re perfectly right to obey orders,” she said, and bending her steps towards the public road from which she had strayed to listen to the unseen musician, she made her way homewards.

“Your mysterious ‘Hermit’ is nothing if not thorough,” she told Doctor Dick and Molly on her return.  “I trespassed on to the Far End property to-day, and was ignominiously ordered off by a rather aggressive person, who, I suppose, is Mr. Trent’s servant.”

“That would be Judson,” nodded Selwyn.  “I’ve attended him once or twice professionally.  The fellow’s all right, but he’s under strict orders, I believe, to allow no trespassers.”

“So it seems,” returned Sara.  “By the way, who is the violinist at Far End?  Is it the ‘Hermit’ himself?”

“It’s rumoured that he does play,” said Molly.  “But no one has ever been privileged to hear him.”

“Their loss, then,” commented Sara shortly.  “I should say he is a magnificent performer.”

Molly nodded, an expression of impish amusement in her eyes.

“On the sole occasion I met him, I asked him why no one was ever allowed to hear him play,” she said, chuckling.  “I even suggested that he might contribute a solo to the charity concert we were getting up at the time!”

“And what did he say?” asked Sara, smiling.

“Told me that there was no need for a man to exhibit his soul to the public!  So I asked him what he meant, and he said that if I understood anything about music I would know, and that if I didn’t, it was a waste of his time trying to explain.  Do you know what he meant?”

“Yes,” said Sara slowly, “I think I do.”  And recalling the passionate appeal and sadness of the music she had heard that afternoon, she was conscious of a sudden quick sense of pity for the solitary hermit of Far End.  He was afraid—­afraid to play to any one, lest he should reveal some inward bitterness of his soul to those who listened!