ut 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!

The following day, Molly carried Sara off to Rose Cottage to make the
acquaintance of "the Lavender Lady" and her nephew.

Miss Herrick--or Miss Lavinia, as she was invariably addressed--looked
exactly as though she had just stepped out of the early part of last
century. She wore a gown of some soft, silky material, sprigged with
heliotrope, and round her neck a fichu of cobwebby lace, fastened at
the breast with a cameo brooch of old Italian workmanship. A coquettish
little lace cap