CHAPTER I
A NEW PUPIL

The first of the series of curious happenings, which led to such a surprising and, indeed, extraordinary denouement, occurred on the twelfth of October. It was a Monday; about four-thirty in the afternoon. Madge Brodie was alone in the house. The weather was dull, a suspicion of mist was in the air, already the day was drawing in.

Madge was writing away with might and main, hard at work on one of those MSS. with which she took such peculiar pains; and with which the editors for whom they were destined took so little. If they would only take a little more-enough to read them through, say-Madge felt sure they would not be so continually returned. Her pen went tearing away at a gallop-it had reached the last few lines-they were finished. She turned to glance at the clock which was on the mantelshelf behind her.

"Gracious! – I had no idea it was so late. Ella will be home in an hour, and there is nothing in the place for her to eat!"

She caught up the sheets of paper, fastened them together at the corner, crammed them into an envelope, scribbled a note, crammed it in after them, addressed the envelope, closed it, jumped up to get her hat, just as there came a rat-tat-tat at the hall-door knocker.

"Now, who's that? I wonder if it is that Miss Brice come for her lesson after all-three hours late. It will be like her if it is-but she sha'n't have it now. We'll see if she shall."

She caught up her hat from the couch, perched it on her head, pushed a pin through the crown.

"If she sees that I am just going out, I should think that even she will hardly venture to ask me to give her a lesson three hours after the time which she herself appointed."

As she spoke she was crossing the little passage towards the front door.

It was not Miss Brice-it was a man. A man, too, who behaved somewhat oddly. No sooner had Madge opened the door, than stepping into the tiny hall, without waiting for any sort of invitation, taking the handle from her hand, he shut it after him with considerably more haste than ceremony. She stared, while he leaned against the wall as if he was short of breath.

He was tall; she only reached to his shoulder, and she was scarcely short. He was young-there was not a hair on his face. He was dressed in blue serge, and when he removed his felt hat he disclosed a well-shaped head covered with black hair, cut very short, with the apparent intention of getting the better of its evident tendency to curl at the tips. His marked feature, at that moment, was his obvious discomposure. He did not look as if he was a nervous sort of person; yet, just then, the most bashful bumpkin could not have seemed more ill at ease. Madge was at a loss what to make of him.

"I'm feeling a little faint."

The words were stammered out, as if with a view of explaining the singularity of his bearing-yet he did not appear to be the kind of individual who might be expected to feel "a little faint," unless nature belied her own handwriting. The strength and constitution of a Samson was written large all over him. It seemed to strike him that his explanation-such as it was-was a little lame, so he stammered something else.

"You give music lessons?"

"Yes, we do give music lessons-at least, I do."

"You? Oh! – You do?"

His tone implied-or seemed to imply-that her appearance was hardly consistent with that of a giver of music lessons. She drew herself a little up.

"I do give music lessons. Have you been recommended by one of my pupils?"

She cast her mind over the scanty list to ascertain which of them might be likely to give such a recommendation. His stumbling answer saved her further trouble on that score.

"No, I-I saw the plate on the gate, so I-I thought I'd just come in and ask you to give me one."

"Give you a music lesson?"

"Yes, if you wouldn't mind."

"But" – she paused, hardly knowing what to say. She had never contemplated giving lessons to pupils of this description. "I never have given lessons to a-gentleman. I supposed they always went to professors of their own sex."

"Do they? I don't know. I hope you don't mind making an exception in my case. I-I'm so fond of music." Suddenly he changed the subject. "This is Clover Cottage?"

"Yes, this is Clover Cottage."

"Are you-pardon me-but are you Miss Ossington?"

"Ossington? No-that is not my name."

"But doesn't some one of that name live here?"

"No one. I never heard it before. I think there must be some mistake."

She laid her hand on the latch-by way of giving him a hint to go. He prevented her opening it, placing his own hand against the door; courteously, yet unmistakably.

"Excuse me-but I hope you will give me a lesson; if it is only of a quarter of an hour, to try what I can do-to see if it would be worth your while to have me as a pupil. I have been long looking for an opportunity of taking lessons, and when I saw your plate on the gate I jumped at the chance."

She hesitated. The situation was an odd one-and yet she had already been for some time aware that young women who are fighting for daily bread have not seldom to face odd situations. Funds were desperately low. She had to contribute her share to the expenses of the little household, and that share was in arrear. Of late MSS. had been coming back more monotonously than ever. Pupils-especially those who were willing to pay possible prices-were few and far between. Who was she, that she should turn custom from the door? It was nothing that this was a stranger-all her pupils were strangers at the beginning; most of them were still strangers at the end. Men, she had heard, pay better than women. She might take advantage of this person's sex to charge him extra terms-even to the extent of five shillings a lesson instead of half a crown. It was an opportunity she could not afford to lose. She resolved to at least go so far as to learn exactly what it was he wanted; and then if, from any point of view, it seemed advisable, to make an appointment for a future date.

She led the way into the sitting room-he following.

"Are you quite a beginner?" she asked.

"No, not-not altogether."

"Let me see what you can do."

She went to a pile of music which was on a little table, for the purpose of selecting a piece of sufficient simplicity to enable a tyro to display his powers, or want of them. He was between her and the window. In passing the window he glanced through it. As he did so, he gave a sudden start-a start, in fact, which amounted to a positive jump. His hat dropped from his hand, and, wholly regardless that he was leaving it lying on the floor, he hurried backwards, keeping in the shadow, and as far as possible from the window. The action was so marked that it was impossible it should go unnoticed. It filled Madge Brodie with a sense of shock which was distinctly disagreeable. Her eyes, too, sought the window-it looked out on to the road. A man, it struck her, of emphatically sinister appearance, was loitering leisurely past. As she looked he stopped dead, and, leaning over the palings, stared intently through the window. It was true that the survey only lasted for a moment, and that then he shambled off again, but the thing was sufficiently conspicuous to be unpleasant.

So startled was she by the connection which seemed to exist between the fellow's insolence and her visitor's perturbation that, without thinking of what she was doing, she placed the first piece she came across upon the music-stand-saying, as she did so:

"Let me see what you can do with this."

Her words were unheeded. Her visitor was drawing himself into an extreme corner of the room, in a fashion which, considering his size and the muscle which his appearance suggested, was, in its way, ludicrous. It was not, however, the ludicrous side which occurred to Madge; his uneasiness made her uneasy too. She spoke a little sharply, as if involuntarily.

"Do you hear me? Will you be so good as to try this piece, and let me see what you can make of it."

Her words seemed to rouse him to a sense of misbehaviour.

"I beg your pardon; I am afraid you will think me rude, but the truth is, I-I have been a little out of sorts just lately." He came briskly towards the piano; glancing however, as Madge could not help but notice, nervously through the window as he came. The man outside was gone; his absence seemed to reassure him. "Is this the piece you wish me to play? I will do my best."

He did his best-or, if it was not his best, his best must have been something very remarkable indeed.

The piece she had selected-unwittingly-was a Minuet of Mozart's. A dainty trifle; a pitfall for the inexperienced; seeming so simple, yet needing the soul, and knowledge, of a virtuoso to make anything of it at all. Hardly the sort of thing to set before a seeker after music lessons, whose acquaintance with music, for all she knew, was limited to picking out the notes upon the keyboard. At her final examination she herself had chosen it, first because she loved it, and, second, because she deemed it to be something which would enable her to illustrate her utmost powers at their very best.

It was only when he struck the first few notes that she realised what it was she had put in front of him; when she did, she was startled. Whether he understood what the piece was there for-that he was being set to play it as an exhibition of his ignorance rather than of his knowledge-was difficult to say. It is quite possible that in the preoccupation of his mind it had escaped him altogether that the sole excuse for his presence in that room lay in the fact that he was seeking lessons from this young girl. There could be no doubt whatever that at least one of the things that he had said of himself was true, and that he did love music; there could be just as little doubt that he already was a musician of a quite unusual calibre-one who had been both born and made.

He played the delicate fragment with an exquisite art which filled Madge Brodie with amazement. She had never heard it played like that before-never! Not even by her own professor. Perhaps her surprise was so great that, in the first flush of it, she exaggerated the player's powers.