Strone was very uncomfortable. He almost wished that he had let her go. However, he made the best of it, hurried on the tea, and ignored sundry affectionate little overtures on her part. Afterward he chose for his seat an isolated rock, and pointed out to her a place beneath. However, he couldn't avoid her resting her head upon his knee. She began to talk--volubly. It wasn't very interesting--a long tirade--a record of her woes, fascinating to him, for it was a page from the life of one of his kind. What a bringing up! A father who drank, a mother to be passed over in dark silence, a squalid home, children unwholesome and unmanageable. What a struggle for respectability, and what would be the end of it, he wondered, as the light grew dimmer, the evening insects buzzed around them, and far down in the valley little yellow dots of light leaped into life. Then he rose up, and she sadly followed his example. "I suppose I must go," she said doubtfully. "I am quite sure of it, if you want to get home to-night," he answered. "I'll carry your bicycle to the gate and light your lamp. You'll remember what we've been talking about. You'll read the books and be brave?" "Yes." "Life isn't always black. There's a time when the clouds lift." "When may I come again?" she asked bluntly. He took her hand gravely. "Next Saturday, Milly. If I am not here, you know where the key is. Stop and make yourself some tea." "If you're away I'll wait," she answered. "I shan't want any tea." He started her off, and trudged homeward with a sense of unaccountable relief. He felt stifled, vaguely troubled by the memory of the girl's white face and pleading brown eyes. Then a nightingale sang to him. At once his mind was swept bare of all such thoughts. Once more the pine and the clover-scented air around him seemed quivering with strange and passionate music. That night in the grounds of Lingford Grange the man stood like a statue, half invisible among the shadows. Only his face, wrung with emotion, gleamed pale through the darkness. Out from the window, ablaze with much illumination, out into the cool, still night came the wonderful music tugging at his heartstrings, sending the blood rushing through his veins at fever heat. The song swelled and the music grew, and with it his impotence. Then came the end--the dying away of that long sustained, melodious note, the crash of chords on the piano, the buzz of applause, merging into conversation.