"Doubt! I do assure you I am one of those strange fellows who see and hear things which most folk affirm have no existence. I find doubting a difficult matter. With ill-luck I might get burnt for a wizard. I promise you there is more understanding in me than you would give me credit for, and certainly I should not call such a flight as yours cowardly."
"I shall be able to judge the better perhaps when I have heard your part of the tale," said Crosby.
"That is by no means certain, for my part is as vague as yours," Fairley answered. "You were in danger, that I knew, but the exact form of it I was ignorant of. I was instructed to find you and bring you to a place of safety, and was told that I should meet with you at 'The Jolly Farmers.'"
"By this same man, I suppose?"
"No. My instructions came from a woman."
"A woman!"
"Yes, and one who is evidently interested in your affairs," Fairley answered. "Does your memory not serve to remind you of such a woman?"
Crosby did not answer the question. In the darkness of the road before him he seemed to see a vision.
"What is this woman like?" He did not turn to look at his companion as he asked the question; he hardly seemed to know that he had spoken.
"I cannot tell you; there are no words," said Fairley, in that curious monotone which the recital of verse may give, or which constant singing may leave in a minstrel's ordinary speech. "I cannot tell, but my fiddle might play her to you in a rhapsody that should set the music in your soul vibrating. There are women whose image cunning fingers may catch with brush and pigment and limn it on canvas; there are women whose image may be traced in burning words so that a vision of her rises before the reader or the hearer; and there are women whose beauty can only be told in music—the subtle music that lies in vibrating strings, music into which a man can pour his whole soul and so make the world understand. Such a woman is she who bid me find Gilbert Crosby and bring him into safety."