Whoever the musician might be, he was a thorough master of his instrument, and Sara listened with delight, recognizing some of the haunting melodies of the wild Russian music which he was playing—music that even in its moments of delirious joy seemed to hold always an underlying bourdon of tragedy and despair.
“Hi, there!”
She started violently. Entirely absorbed in the music, she had failed to observe a man, dressed in the style of an indoor servant, who had appeared in the doorway of one of the outbuildings and who now addressed her in peremptory tones.
“Hi, there! Don't you know you're trespassing?”
Jerked suddenly out of her dreamy enjoyment, Sara looked round vaguely.
“I didn't know that Monk's Cliff was private property,” she said after a pause.
“Nor is it, that I know of. But you're on the Far End estate now—this is a private road,” replied the man disagreeably. “You'll please to take yourself off.”
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.