the door for her with a deep bow. "I always drive myself,
_Juliette_, and--I always get there," he said.

Her faint laugh floated back to Dick as he followed them out.

CHAPTER VII

FLIGHT

It was a dumb and sullen crowd that Dick Green faced that night in the
great barn on the slope of High Shale.

A rough platform had been erected at one end of the place and this, with
the deal table and lamp and one or two chairs, was all that went to the
furnishing of his assembly-room. The men stood in a close crowd like
herded cattle, and the atmosphere of the place was heavy with the reek of
humanity and coarse tobacco-smoke. There was a door at each end, but the
night was still and dark and there was little air beyond the vague chill
of a creeping sea-mist.

Dick, entering at the door at the platform end of the building instead of
passing straight up through the crowd as was his custom, was aware of a
curious influence at work from the first moment--an influence adverse if
not directly hostile that reached him he knew not how. He heard a vague
murmur as Juliet and Saltash followed him, and sharply he turned and drew
Juliet to his side. In that instant he realized that she was the only
woman in the place.

He faced the crowd, his hand upon her arm. "Well, men," he said, his
words clean-cut and ready, "so you've left your wives behind, have
you? I on the contrary have brought mine, and she has promised to give
you a song."

The mutter died. Some youths at the back started applause, which spread,
though somewhat half-heartedly, through the crowd, and for a space the
ugly feeling died down.

"We'll get to business," said Dick, and took out his banjo.

The concert began, Ashcott came up on to the platform and under cover of
Dick's jangling ragtime spoke in a low voice and urgently to Saltash.

The latter heard him with a laugh and a careless grimace, but a little
later he leaned towards Juliet who sat behind the table and touched her
unobtrusively. She looked round at him almost with reluctance, and he
whispered to her in rapid French.

She listened to him with raised brows, and then shook her head with a
smile. "No, of course not! I am going to sing to them directly. I am here
to help--not to make things worse."

He shrugged his shoulders and said no more. In a few minutes Dick's
cheery banjo thrummed into silence and he turned round.

"Are you ready?" he said to Juliet.

She rose and came forward, tall a