Peter walked back to his cottage with his mind in a turmoil.  
It had been utterly, entirely different from the scene he had pictured to himself. He had not swaggered, he had not stepped on to his platform with an air of assurance. Something had gripped him, something indefinable and powerful, and he—Peter—had lost the strength to assert his own personality.
 
It had been there, sure enough, but swayed, [Pg 113]dominated, by something outside, beyond him. It had come out from himself, forced out it would seem, into the music of his piping. He had played himself, his own story, to this woman on whom he had never before set eyes.
 
Yet did he not know her? Had he never before seen her? Peter searched the recesses of his memory, penetrating to its remotest corners, but with no avail.
&nbs............