The Unknown Critic to Robin Adair  
“The Terrace,
 
“June 8th.
 
“Here, Robin Adair, is a night-stock from below my terrace. I enclose it while it is white and fragrant. It will reach you brown and shrivelled; but, as you say, less shrivelled than my letter would have been—in fact, as it now is. It lies on the terrace beside me, a little heap of grey powdered ashes. This flower is its resurrected form. It is slighter, subtler, more fragrant than that letter. I began to re-read it, but did not get far; it was too serious, Robin Adair.
 
“I am, as the above will have told you, writing from my terrace in the cool of the evening. A lamp in the window of my morning-room affords me light. The sky is grey-blue, and away in the west, Venus, who is an evening star at the moment, is shining calm and peaceful.
 
“I had a concert on this very terrace yesterday afternoon. A so-called vagabond piped to me, wearing shabby clothes and a peacock feather in his hat....”
 
Peter laid down the letter a moment. His brain was whirling. Not even on the receipt of the first letter from his Lady had it whirled with such rapidity. Here, then, was the explanation. Of course, he had known her before. He had had glimpses of her mind, her soul, her delicate fanciful imaginings. She had embodied suddenly before him, and unconsciously his soul had recognized her, though reason had urged to the contrary. It was incredible, marvellous! In actual everyday life such things did not happen. Yet here was the proof thereof, finely, clearly traced with black ink on a sheet of bluish note-paper.
 
He picked up the letter again, and began to read further.
 
“It was a wonderful concert. Music has [Pg 116]never before so stirred, so moved me. Picture to yourself an ordinary penny whistle, from which divine music was produced. He told a life-story in his piping, yet fragmentary sentences alone reached me. It was as if I were reading a book in a language of which I knew but a few words. Can you understand?
 
“What there was in the first part of his theme, I know not; but he, that strolling player, had suffered. Part of his theme beat and struggled for liberty like a caged bird, or like an imprisoned mind—a fettered expression. And when the expression, the liberty came—that was what hurt—it was smashed, broken. Can you picture a caged skylark, longing, pining for liberty, then seeing the cage door open, and flying forth into the sunlight, its throat bursting with rapture, only to find itself seized by some ruthless hand, wings torn from its body? Yet the bird was not dead; there was the horror. It lay still, bleeding, apparently lifeless, then lifted its head. Maimed though it was, it would still sing; and its song should be no complaint, but one to encourage and cheer all other injured things. I could have wept for the pluck, the courage of the little creature. And after a time it began to grow wings—little young wings that carried it just above the earth into the open it loved. It was only a little way, but it meant such a lot to that skylark. It was here, at the end, that the music spoke most directly to my heart. The song the partially healed skylark sang seemed to be sung for me alone, and yet here the translation of the words most failed me.
 
“The man is an artist. I wish he would play for me again. Yet I dare no more ask him now than I would dare ask Sarasate to come to my terrace and play.
 
“He—this piper—is living on the outskirts of the village, in a cottage reputed to be haunted. Doubtless he has charmed and soothed the restless spirits by his piping. This is a great deal to write to you regarding an unknown strolling player—though he is not strolling now—but the man himself is unusual, while his music is superb. He struck me as one of gentle birth. His speech was educated, and his whole appearance, in spite of his shabby clothes, refined. I am sure he has a story—one, Robin Adair, that might be worthy of your pen.
 
 
“My companion—a dear, but very old-fashioned—resented his behaviour. She thought he did not treat me with sufficient respect, mainly because he did not jump at the proposal of playing to me again. I did suggest I should like to hear him; but to send for him again, to send a footman to fetch him as I did before, would be impossible. I hope Burton delivered my message nicely. I worded it courteously, at all events.
 
“How goes your Wanderer, and are his thoughts progressing? That you should dedicate those thoughts to me pleases me immensely. I think it an honour that you should care to do so.
 
“I am glad you did not burn my letter. I am glad you cared enough about it—poor dull thing though it was—to refuse to do so. I did not mean to say this to you, yet I have.
 
“Good-night.”
 
Peter (alias Robin Adair) to the Unknown Critic, whom he now knows to be the Lady Anne Garland
 
“June 10th.
 
“Dear Lady,—I am in a contrary frame of mind to-night. I want to write to you, yet am in no mood to do so.
 
 
“I have met your vagabond piper, and know him more intimately than you might suppose. He is an impostor, though a harmless one, I grant. His music is not bad, but I doubt his playing to you again. The fellow has a good conceit of himself.
 
“After all, I find I cannot write to-night. Thank you for the flower.
 
“Robin Adair.”
 
The Unknown Critic to Robin Adair
 
“The Terrace,
 
“June 18th.
 
“Why are you so hard on my Piper? I do not believe he is an impostor. And as for his music being not bad! Robin Adair, are you one ‘who has no music in him, and is not moved by concord of sweet sounds,’ or in what way has this man vexed you? The latter I believe to be the solution, Robin Adair, and it is not worthy of you. But I will not write more of him. I have not seen him again, and the villagers speak of him with bated breath as a friend of the Evil One. If he were of my faith, I would ask Father Lestrange, a kindly man, to call at the cottage. But as he [Pg 120]never hears Mass he is evidently of another way of thinking, and might regard the visit as an intrusion. And for some reason he desires solitude. One dare not therefore intrude. I feel, however, that he is lonely, and have had, perhaps foolishly, a desire to lessen that loneliness.
 
“The country is very peaceful after London, and I am revelling in my flowers, more especially my roses. They are adoring this unwavering sunshine and the warm nights. The gardeners keep their roots well watered, ............