CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES

The encounter was so amazing, so utterly unlooked for, that Avery had a

moment of downright consternation. The child's whole air and expression

were so exactly reminiscent of her father that she almost felt as if she

stood before the Vicar himself--a culprit caught in a guilty act.

She looked at Olive without words, and Olive looked straight back at her

with that withering look of the righteous condemning the ungodly which so

often regarded a dumb but rebellious congregation through the Vicar's

stern eyes.

Piers, however, was not fashioned upon timid lines, and he stepped into

the hall without the faintest sign of embarrassment.

"Hullo, little girl!" he said. "Why aren't you in bed?"

The accusing eyes turned upon him. Olive seemed to swell with

indignation. "I was in bed long ago," she made answer, still in those

frozen tones. "May I ask what you are doing here, Mr. Evesham?"

"I?" said Piers jauntily. "Now what do you suppose?"

"I cannot imagine," the child said.

"Not really?" said Piers. "Well, perhaps when you are a little older

your imagination will develop. In the meantime, if you are a wise

little girl, you will run back to bed and leave your elders to settle

their own affairs."

Olive drew herself up with dignity. "It is not my intention to go so

long as you are in the house," she said with great distinctness.

"Indeed!" said Piers. "And why not?"

He spoke with the utmost quietness, but Avery caught the faintest tremor

in his voice that warned her that Olive was treading dangerous ground.

She hastened to intervene. "But of course you are going now," she said to

him. "It is bedtime for us all. Good-night! And thank you for walking

home with me!"

Her own tone was perfectly normal. She turned to him with outstretched

hand, but he put it gently aside.

"One minute!" he said. "I should like an answer to my question first. Why

are you so determined to see me out of the house?"

He looked straight at Olive as he spoke, no longer careless of mien, but

implacable as granite.

Olive, however, was wholly undismayed. She was the only one of the

Vicar's children who had never had cause to feel a twinge of fear. "You

had better ask yourself that question," she said, in her cool young

treble. "You probably know the answer better than I do."

Piers' expression changed. For a single instant he looked furious, but he

mastered himself almost immediately. "It's a lucky thing for you that you

are not my little girl," he observed grimly. "If you were, you should

have the slapping of your life to-night. As it is,--well, you have asked

me for an explanation of my presence here, and you shall have one. I am

here in the capacity of escort to Mrs. Denys. Have you any fault to find

with that?"

Olive returned his look steadily with her cold grey eyes while she

considered his words. She seemed momentarily at a loss for an answer, but

Piers' first remarks were scarcely of a character to secure goodwill or

allay suspicion. She rapidly made up her mind.

"I shall tell Miss Whalley in the morning," she said. "My father said I

was to go to her if anything went wrong." She added, with a malevolent

glance towards Avery, "I suppose you know that Mrs. Denys is under notice

to leave at the end of her month?"

Piers glanced at Avery too--a glance of swift interrogation. She nodded

very slightly in answer.

He looked again at Olive with eyes that gleamed in a fashion that few

could have met without quailing.

"Is she indeed?" he said. "I venture to predict that she will leave

before then. If you are anxious to impart news to Miss Whalley, you may

tell her also that Mrs. Denys is going to be my wife, and that the

marriage will take place--" he looked at Avery again and all the hardness

went out of his face--"just as soon as she will permit."

Dead silence followed the announcement. Avery's face was pale, but there

was a faint smile at her lips. She met Piers' look without a tremor. She

even drew slightly nearer to him; and he, instantly responding, slipped a

swift hand through her arm.

Olive, sternly judicial, stood regarding them in silence, for perhaps a

score of seconds. And then, still undismayed, she withdrew her forces in

good order from the field.

"In that case," she said, with the air of one closing a discussion,

"there is nothing further to be said. I suppose Mrs. Denys wishes to

be Lady Evesham. My father told me she was an adventuress. I see he

was right."

She went away with this parting shot, stepping high and holding her

head poised loftily--an absurd parody of the Vicar in his most

clerical moments.

Avery gave a little hysterical gasp of laughter as she passed out of

sight.

Piers' arm was about her in a moment. He held her against his heart.

"What a charming child, what?" he murmured.

She hid her face on his shoulder. "I think myself she was in the right,"

she said, still half laughing. "Piers, you must go."

"In a moment. Let me hear from your own dear lips first that you are

not--not angry?" He spoke the words softly into her ear. There was only

tenderness in the holding of his arms.

"I am not," she whispered back.

"Nor sorry?" urged Piers.

She turned her face a little towards him. "No, dear, not a bit

sorry; glad!"

He held her more closely but with reverence. "Avery, you don't--love

me, do you?"

"Of course I do!" she said.

"There can't be any 'of course' about it," he declared almost fiercely.

"I've been a positive brute to you. Avery--Avery, I'll never be a brute

to you again."

And there he stopped, for her arms were suddenly about his neck, her lips

raised in utter surrender to his.

"Oh, Piers," she said in a voice that thrilled him through and through,

"do you think I would have less of your love--even if it hurts me? It is

the greatest thing that has ever come into my life."

He held her head between his hands and looked into her eyes of perfect

trust. "Avery! Avery!" he said.

"I mean it!" she told him earnestly. "I have been drawing nearer to you

all the while--in spite of myself--though I tried so hard to hold back.

Piers, my past life is a dream, and this--this is the awaking. You asked

me--a long while ago--if the past mattered. I couldn't answer you then. I

was still half-asleep. But now--now you have worked the miracle--my heart

is awake, dear, and I will answer you. The past is nothing to you or me.

It matters--not--one--jot!"

Her words throbbed into the silence of his kiss. He held her long and

closely. Once--twice--he tried to speak to her and failed. In the end he

gave himself up mutely to the rapture of her arms. But his own wild

passion had sunk below the surface. He sought no more than she offered.

"Say good-bye to me now!" she whispered at length; and he kissed her

again closely, lingeringly, and let her go.

She stood in the doorway as he passed into the night, and his last sight

of her was thus, silhouetted against the darkness, a tall, gracious

figure, bending forward to discern him in the dimness.

He went back to his lonely home, back to the echoing emptiness, the

listening dark. He entered again the great hall where Sir Beverley had

been wont to sit and wait for him.

Victor was on the watch. He glided apologetically forward with shining,

observant eyes upon his young master's weary face.

"_Monsieur Pierre_!" he said insinuatingly.

Piers looked at him heavily. "Well?"

"I have put some refreshment for you in the dining-room. It is

more--more comfortable," said Victor, gently indicating the open

door. "Will you not--when you have eaten--go to bed, _mon cher, et

peut-être dormir_?"

Very wistfully the little man proffered his suggestion. His eyes followed

Piers' movements with the dumb worship of an animal.

"Oh yes, I'll go to bed," said Piers.

He turned towards the dining-room and entered. There was no elation in

his step; rather he walked as a man who carries a heavy burden, and

Victor marked the fact with eyes of keen anxiety.

He followed him in and poured out a glass of wine, setting it before him

with a professional adroitness that did not conceal his solicitude.

Piers picked up the glass almost mechanically, and in doing so caught

sight of some letters lying on the table.

"Oh, damn!" he said wearily. "How many more?"

There were bundles of them on the study writing-table. They poured in by

every post.

Victor groaned commiseratingly. "I will take them away, yes?" he

suggested. "You will read them in the morning--when you have slept."

"Yes, take 'em away!" said Piers. "Stay a minute! What's that top one?

I'll look at that."

He took up the envelope. It was addressed in a man's square, firm writing

to "Piers Evesham, Esq., Rodding Abbey."

"Someone who doesn't know," murmured Piers, and slit it open with a sense

of relief. Some of the letters of condolence that he had received had

been as salt rubbed into a wound.

He took out the letter and glanced at the signature: "Edmund Crowther!"

Suddenly a veil seemed to be drawn across his eyes. He looked up with a

sharp, startled movement, and through a floating mist he saw his

grandmother's baffling smile from the canvas on the wall. The blood was

singing in his ears. He clenched his hands involuntarily. Crowther! He

had forgotten Crowther! And Crowther knew--how much?

But he had Crowther's promise of secrecy, so--after all--what had he to

fear? Nothing--nothing! Yet he felt as if a devil were laughing somewhere

in the room. They had caught him, they had caught him, there at the very

gates of deliverance. They were dragging him back to his place of

torment. He could hear the clanking of the chains which he had so nearly

burst asunder, could feel them coiling cold about his heart. For he also

was bound by a promise, the keeping of which meant utter destruction to

all he held good in life.

And not that alone. It meant the rending in pieces of that which was

holy, the trampling into the earth of that sacred gift which had only

now been bestowed upon him. It meant the breaking of a woman's

heart--that of the only woman in the world, the woman he worshipped, body

and soul, the woman who in spite of herself had come to love him also.

He flung up his arms with a wild gesture. The torment was more than he

could bear.

"No!" he cried. "No!" And it was as if he cried out of the midst of a

burning, fiery furnace. "I'm damned--I'm damned if I will!"

_"Monsieur Pierre! Monsieur Pierre!"_ It was Victor's voice beside him,

full of anxious remonstrance.

He looked round with dazed eyes. His arms fell to his sides. "All right,

my good Victor; I'm not mad," he said. "Don't be scared! Did you ever

hear of a chap called Damocles? He's an ancestor of mine, and history has

a funny fashion of repeating itself. But there'll be a difference this

time all the same. He couldn't eat his dinner for fear of a naked sword

falling on his head. But I'm going to eat mine--whatever happens; and

enjoy it too."

He raised his glass aloft with a reckless laugh. His eyes sought those of

the woman on the wall with a sparkle of bitter humour. He made her a

brief, defiant bow.

"And you, madam, may look on--and smile!" he said.

He drank the wine without tasting it and swung round to depart. And

again, as he went, it seemed to him that somewhere near at hand--possibly

in his own soul--a devil laughed and gibed.

Yet when he lay down at length, he slept for many hours in dreamless,

absolute repose--as a voyager who after long buffeting with wind and tide

has come at last into the quiet haven of his desire.

PART II

THE PLACE OF TORMENT

CHAPTER I

DEAD SEA FRUIT

"I doubt if the County will call," said Miss Whalley, "unless the fact

that Sir Piers is to stand for the division weighs with them. And Colonel

Rose's patronage may prove an added inducement. He probably knows that

the young man has simply married this Mrs. Denys out of pique, since his

own charming daughter would have none of him. I must say that personally

I am not surprised that Miss Rose should prefer marriage with a man of

such sterling worth as Mr. Guyes. Sir Piers may be extremely handsome and

fascinating; but no man with those eyes could possibly make a good

husband. I hear it is to be a very grand affair indeed, dear Mrs.

Lorimer,--far preferable in my opinion to the hole-in-a-corner sort of

ceremony that took place this morning."

"They both of them wished it to be as quiet as possible," murmured Mrs.

Lorimer. "She being a widow and he--poor lad!--in such deep mourning."

"Indecent haste, I call it," pronounced Miss Whalley severely, "with the

earth still fresh on his poor dear grandfather's grave! A May wedding

too! Most unsuitable!"

"He said he was so lonely," pleaded Mrs. Lorimer gently. "And after all

it was what his grandfather wished,--so he told me."

Miss Whalley gave a high-bred species of snort. "My dear Mrs. Lorimer,

that young man would tell you anything. Why, his grandfather was an

inveterate woman-hater, as all the world knows."

"I know," agreed Mrs. Lorimer. "That was really what made it so

remarkable. I assure you, Miss Whalley,--Piers came to me only last night

and told me with tears in his eyes--that just at the last poor Sir

Beverley said to him: 'I believe you've pitched on the right woman after

all, lad. Anyway, she cares for you--more than ordinary. Marry her as

quick as you can--and my blessing on you both!' They were almost the last

words he spoke," said Mrs. Lorimer, wiping her own eyes. "I thought it

was so dear of Piers to tell me."

"No doubt," sniffed Miss Whalley. "He is naturally anxious to secure

your goodwill. But I wonder very much what point of view the dear Vicar

takes of the matter. If I mistake not, he took Mrs. Denys's measure some

time ago."

"Did he?" said Mrs. Lorimer vaguely.

Miss Whalley looked annoyed. The Vicar's wife obviously lacked sufficient

backbone to quarrel on the subject. She was wont to say that she detested

invertebrate women.

"I think the Vicar was not altogether surprised," Mrs. Lorimer went on,

in her gentle, conversational way. "You see, Piers had been somewhat

assiduous for some time. I myself, however, did not fancy that dear Avery

wished to encourage him."

"Pooh!" said Miss Whalley. "It was the chance of her life."

A faint flush rose in Mrs. Lorimer's face. "She is a dear girl," she

said. "I don't know what I shall do without her."

"The children are getting older now," said Miss Whalley. "Jeanie ought to

be able to take her place to a very great extent."

"My little Jeanie is not strong," murmured Mrs. Lorimer. "She does what

she can, but her lessons tire her so. She never has much energy left,

poor child. She has not managed to finish her holiday-task yet, and it

occupies all her spare time. I told the Vicar that I really did not think

she was equal to it. But--" the sentence went into a heavy sigh, and

further words failed.

"The Vicar is always very judicious with his children," observed

Miss Whalley.

"He does not err on the side of mercy," said his wife pathetically. "And

he does not seem to realize that Jeanie lacks the vitality of the

others,--though how they ever got through their tasks I can't imagine. It

must have been dear Avery's doing. She is a genius with children. They

all managed it but poor Jeanie. How ever we shall get on without her I

cannot think."

"But she was under notice to go, I am told," observed Miss Whalley.

"Yes,--yes, I know. But I had hoped that the Vicar might relent. You see,

she has been invaluable to us in so many ways. However, I hope when she

comes back that we shall see a great deal of her. She is so good to the

children and they adore her."

"I doubt if she will have much time to bestow upon them if the County

really do decide to accept her," remarked Miss Whalley. "You forget that

she is now Lady Evesham, my dear Mrs. Lorimer, and little likely to

remember old friends now that she has attained the summit of her

ambition."

"I don't think Avery would forget us if she became a royal princess,"

said Mrs. Lorimer, with a confidence that Miss Whalley found peculiarly

irritating.

"Ah well, we shall see, we shall see!" she said. "I for one shall be

extremely surprised if she elects to remain on the same intimate footing.

From mother's help at the Vicarage to Lady Evesham of Rodding Abbey is a

considerable leap, and she will be scarcely human if it does not turn

her head."

But Mrs. Lorimer merely smiled and said no more. She knew how little

Avery was drawn by pomp and circumstance, but she would not vaunt her

knowledge before one so obviously incapable of understanding. In silence

she let the subject pass.

"And where is the honeymoon to be spent?" enquired Miss Whalley, who was

there to glean information and did not mean to go empty away.

But Mrs. Lorimer shook her head. "Even I don't know that. Piers had a

whim to go just where they fancied. They will call for letters at certain

post-offices on certain days; but he did not want to feel bound to stay

at any particular place. Where they are at the present moment or where

they will spend to-night, I have not the faintest idea. Nobody knows!"

"How extremely odd!" sniffed Miss Whalley. "But young Evesham always was

so ill-balanced and eccentric. Is it true that Dr. Tudor went to the

wedding this morning?"

"Quite true," said Mrs. Lorimer. "I thought it was so kind of him. He

arrived a little late. Avery did not know he was there until it was over.

But he came forward then and shook hands with them both and wished them

happiness. He and young Mr. Guyes, who supported Piers, were the only two

present besides the Eveshams' family solicitor from Wardenhurst and

ourselves. I gave the dear girl away," said Mrs. Lorimer with gentle

pride. "And my dear husband conducted the service so impressively."

"I am sure he would," said Miss Whalley. "But I think it was unfortunate

that so much secrecy was observed. People are so apt to talk

uncharitably. It was really most indiscreet."

Could she have heard the remark which Piers was making at that identical

moment to his bride, she would have understood one of the main reasons

for his indiscretion.

They were sitting in the deep, deep heart of a wood--an enchanted wood

that was heavy with the spring fragrance of the mountain-ash,--and Piers,

the while he peeled a stick with the deftness of boyhood, observed with

much complacence: "Well, we've done that old Whalley chatterbox out of a

treat anyway. Of all the old parish gossips, that woman is the worst. I

never pass her house without seeing her peer over her blind. She always

looks at me with a suspicious, disapproving eye. It's rather a shame, you

know," he wound up pathetically, "for she has only once in her life found

me out, and that was a dozen years ago."

Avery laughed a little. "I don't think she approves of any men except

the clergy."

"Oh yes, she clings like a leech to the skirts of the Church," said Piers

irreverently. "There are plenty of her sort about--wherever there are

parsons, in fact. Of course it's the parsons' fault. If they didn't

encourage 'em they wouldn't be there."

"I don't know that," said Avery, with a smile. "I think you're a little

hard on parsons."

"Do you? Well, I don't know many. The Reverend Stephen is enough for me.

I fight shy of all the rest."

"My dear, how very narrow of you!" said Avery.

He turned to her boyishly. "Don't tell me you want to be a female curate

like the Whalley! I couldn't bear it!"

"I haven't the smallest leaning in that direction," Avery assured him.

"But at the same time, one of my greatest friends is about to enter the

Church, and I do want you to meet and like him."

A sudden silence followed her words. Piers resumed the peeling of his

stick with minute attention. "I am sure to like him if you do," he

remarked, after a moment.

She touched his arm lightly. "Thank you, dear. He is an Australian, and

the very greatest-hearted man I ever met. He stood by me in a time of

great trouble. I don't know what I should have done without him. I hope

he won't feel hurt, but I haven't even told him of my marriage yet."

"We have been married just ten hours," observed Piers, still intent

upon his task.

She laughed again. "Yes, but it is ten days since we became engaged, and

I owe him a letter into the bargain. He wanted to arrange to meet me in

town one day; but he is still too busy to fix a date. He is studying

very hard."

"What's his name?" said Piers.

"Crowther--Edmund Crowther. He has been a farmer for years in

Queensland." Avery, paused a moment. "It was he who broke the news to me

of my husband's death," she said, in a low voice. "I told you about

that, Piers."

"You did," said Piers.

His tone was deliberately repressive, and a little quiver of

disappointment went through Avery. She became silent, and the magic

of the woods closed softly in upon them. Evening was drawing on, and

the long, golden rays of sunshine lay like a benediction over the

quiet earth.

The silence between them grew and expanded into something of a barrier.

From her seat on a fallen tree Avery gazed out before her. She could not

see Piers' face which was bent above the stick which he had begun to

whittle with his knife. He was sitting on the ground at her feet, and

only his black head was visible to her.

Suddenly, almost fiercely, he spoke. "I know Edmund Crowther."

Avery's eyes came down to him in astonishment. "You know him!"

"Yes, I know him." He worked furiously at his stick without looking up.

His words came in quick jerks, as if for some reason he wanted to get

them spoken without delay. "I met him years ago. He did me a good

turn--helped me out of a tight corner. A few weeks ago--when I was at

Monte Carlo with my grandfather--I met him again. He told me then that

he knew you. Of course it was a rum coincidence. Heaven only knows what

makes these things happen. You needn't write to him, I will."

He ceased to speak, and suddenly Avery saw that his hands were

trembling--trembling violently as the hands of a man with an ague. She

watched them silently, wondering at his agitation, till Piers, becoming

aware of her scrutiny, abruptly flung aside the stick upon which he had

been expending so much care and leaped to his feet with a laugh that

sounded oddly strained to her ears.

"Come along!" he said. "If we sit here talking like Darby and Joan much

longer, we shall forget that it's actually our wedding-day."

Avery looked up at him without rising, a queer sense of foreboding at

her heart. "Then Edmund Crowther is a friend of yours," she said. "A

close friend?"

He stood above her, and she saw a very strange look in his eyes--almost a

desperate look.

"Quite a close friend," he said in answer. "But he won't be if you waste

any more thought on him for many days to come. I want your thoughts all

for myself."

Again he laughed, holding out his hands to her with a gesture that

compelled rather than invited. She yielded to his insistence, but with

a curious, hurt feeling as of one repulsed. It was as if he had closed

a door in her face, not violently or in any sense rudely, yet with

such evident intention that she had almost heard the click of the key

in the lock.

Hand in hand they went through the enchanted wood; and for ever after,

the scent of mountain-ash blossom was to Avery a bitter-sweet memory of

that which should have been wholly sweet.

As for Piers, she did not know what was in his mind, though she was

aware for a time of a lack of spontaneity behind his tenderness which

disquieted her vaguely. She felt as if a shadow had fallen upon him,

veiling his inner soul from her sight.

Yet when they sat together in the magic quiet of the spring night in a

garden that had surely been planted for lovers the cloud lifted, and she

saw him again in all the ardour of his love for her. For he poured it

out to her there in the silence, eagerly, burningly,--the worship that

had opened to her the gate of that paradise which she had never more

hoped to tread.

She put her doubts and fears away from her, she answered to his call. He

had awaked the woman's heart in her, and she gave freely, impulsively,

not measuring her gift. If she could not offer him a girl's first

rapture, she could bestow that which was infinitely greater--the deep,

strong love of a woman who had suffered and knew how to endure.

They sat in the dewy garden till in the distant woods the nightingales

began their passion-steeped music, and then--because the ecstasy of the

night was almost more than she could bear--Avery softly freed herself

from her husband's arm and rose.

"Going?" he asked quickly.

He remained seated holding her hand fast locked in his. She looked down

into his upraised face, conscious that her own was in shadow and that she

need not try to hide the tears that had risen inexplicably to her eyes.

"Yes, dear," she answered, with an effort at lightness. "You haven't had

a smoke since dinner. I am going to leave you to have one now."

But he still held her, as if he could not let her go.

She bent to him after a moment with that sweet impulsiveness of hers that

so greatly charmed all who loved her. "What is it, Piers? Don't you want

me to go?"

He caught her other hand in his and held them both against his lips.

"Want you to go!" he muttered almost inarticulately; and then suddenly he

raised his face again to hers. "Avery--Avery, promise me--swear to

me--that, whatever happens, you will never leave me!"

"But, my dearest, haven't I already sworn--only today?" she said,

surprised by his vehemence and his request. "Of course I shall never

leave you. My place is by your side."

"I know! I know!" he said. "But it isn't enough. I want you to promise me

personally, so that--I shall always feel--quite sure of you. You see,

Avery," his words came with difficulty, his upturned face seemed to

beseech her, "I'm not--the sort of impossible, chivalrous knight that

Jeanie thinks me. I'm horribly bad. I sometimes think I've got a devil

inside me. And I've done things--I've done things--" His voice shook

suddenly; he ended abruptly, with heaving breath. "Before I ever met you,

I--wronged you."

He would have let her go then, but it was her hands that held. She

stooped lower to him, divinely tender, her love seeming to spread all

about him like wings, folding him in.

"My dear," she said softly, "whatever there is of bad in you,--remember,

the best is mine!"

He caught at the words. "The best--the best! You shall always have that,

Avery. But, my darling,--you understand--you do understand--how utterly

unworthy that best is of you? You must understand that before--before--"

Again his voice went into silence; but she saw his eyes glow suddenly,

hotly, in the gloom, and her heart gave a quick hard throb that caught

her breath and held it for the moment suspended, waiting.

He went on after a second, mastering himself with obvious effort. "What

I am trying to say is this. It's easier--or at least not impossible--to

forfeit what you've never had. But afterwards--afterwards--" His hands

closed tightly upon hers again; his voice sounded half-choked. "Avery,

I--couldn't let you go--afterwards," he said.

"But, my own Piers," she whispered, "haven't you said that there is no

reason--no earthly reason--"

He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "There is no reason--none

whatever--I swear it! You said yourself that the past was nothing to you.

You meant it, Avery. Say you meant it!"

"But of course I meant it!" she told him. "Only, Piers, there is no

secret chamber in my life that you may not enter. Perhaps some day, dear,

when you come to realize that I am older than Jeanie, you will open all

your doors to me!"

There was pleading in her voice, notwithstanding its note of banter; but

she did not stay to plead. With the whispered words she stooped and

softly kissed him. Then ere he could detain her longer she gently

released herself and was gone.

He saw her light figure flit ghost-like across the dim stretch of grass

and vanish into the shadows. And he started to his feet as if he would

follow or call her back. But he did neither. He only stood swaying on his

feet with a face of straining impotence--as of a prisoner wrestling

vainly with his iron bars--until she had gone wholly from his sight. And

then with a stifled groan he dropped down again into his chair and

covered his face.

He had paid a heavy price to enter the garden of his desire; but

already he had begun to realize that the fruit he gathered there was

Dead Sea Fruit.

CHAPTER II

THAT WHICH IS HOLY

No bells had rung at the young Squire's wedding. It had been conducted

with a privacy which Miss Whalley described as "almost indecent." But

there was no privacy about his return, and Miss Whalley was shocked

afresh at the brazen heartlessness of it after his recent bereavement.

For Sir Piers and his wife motored home at the end of July through a

village decked with flags and bunting and under a triumphant arch that

made Piers' little two-seater seem absurdly insignificant; while the

bells in the church-tower clanged the noisiest welcome they could

compass, and Gracie--home for the holidays--mustered the school-children

to cheer their hardest as the happy couple passed the schoolhouse gate.

Avery would fain have stopped to greet the child, but Piers would not be

persuaded.

"No, no! To-morrow!" he said. "The honeymoon isn't over till after

to-night."

So they waved and were gone, at a speed which made Miss Whalley wonder

what the local police could be about.

Once past the lodge-gates and Marshall's half-grudging, half-pleased

smile of welcome, the speed was doubled. Piers went like the wind, till

Avery breathlessly cried to him to stop.

"You'll kill us both before we get there!" she protested. In answer to

which Piers moderated the pace, remarking as he did so, "But you would

like to die by my side, what?"

Victor was on the steps to receive them, Victor dancing with impatience

and delight. For his young master's prolonged honeymoon had represented

ten weeks of desolation to him.

Old David was also present, inconspicuous and dignified, waiting to pour

out tea for the travellers.

And Caesar the Dalmatian who had mourned with Victor for his absent deity

now leapt upon him in one great rush of ecstatic welcome that nearly bore

him backwards.

It was a riotous home-coming, for Piers was in boisterous spirits. They

had travelled far that day, but he was in a mood of such restless energy

that he seemed incapable of feeling fatigue.

Avery on her part was thoroughly weary, but she would not tell him so,

and they spent the whole evening in wandering about house and gardens,

discussing the advisability of various alterations and improvements. In

the end Piers awoke suddenly to the fact that she was looking utterly

exhausted, and with swift compunction piloted her to her room.

"What a fool I am!" he declared. "You must be dead beat. Why didn't you

say you wanted to rest?"

"I didn't, dear," she answered simply. "I wanted to be with you."

He caught her hand to his lips. "You are happy with me then?"

She uttered a little laugh that said more than words. "My own boy, you

give me all that the most exacting woman could possibly desire and then

ask me that!"

He laughed too, his arm close about her. "I would give you the world if I

had it. Avery, I hate to think we've come home--that the honeymoon is

over--and the old beastly burdens waiting to be shouldered--" He laid his

forehead against her neck with a gesture that made her fancy he did not

wish her to see his face for the moment. "P'r'aps I'm a heartless brute,

but I never missed the old chap all the time I was away," he whispered.

"It's like being dragged under the scourge again--just when the old scars

were beginning to heal--to come back to this empty barrack."

She slid a quick arm round his neck, all the woman's heart in her

responding to the cry from his.

"The place is full of him," Piers went on; "I meet him at every corner.

I see him in his old place on the settle in the hall, where he used to

wait for me, and--and row me every night for being late." He gave a

broken laugh. "Avery, if it weren't for you, I--I believe I should

shoot myself."

"Come and sit down!" said Avery gently. She drew him to a couch, and

they sat down locked together.

During all the ten weeks of their absence he had scarcely even mentioned

his grandfather. He had been gay and inconsequent, or fiercely passionate

in his devotion to her. But of his loss he had never spoken, and vaguely

she had known that he had shut it out of his life with that other grim

shadow that dwelt behind the locked door she might not open. She had not

deemed him heartless, but she had regretted that deliberate shirking of

his grief. She had known that sooner or later he would have to endure the

scourging of which he spoke and that it would not grow the lighter with

postponement.

And now as she held him against her heart, she was in a sense relieved

that it had come at last, thankful to be there with him while he stripped

himself of all subterfuge and faced his sorrow.

He could not speak much as he sat there clasped in her arms. One or two

attempts he made, and then broke down against her breast. But no words

were needed. Her arms were all he desired for consolation, and if they

waked in him the old wild remorse, he stifled it ere it could take full

possession.

Finally, when the first bitterness had passed, they sat and talked

together, and he found relief in telling her of the life he had lived in

close companionship with the old man.

"We quarrelled a dozen times," he said. "But somehow we could neither of

us keep it up. I don't know why. We were violent enough at times. There's

an Evesham devil somewhere in our ancestry, and he has a trick of

cropping up still in moments of excitement. You've met him more than

once. He's a formidable monster, what?"

"I am not afraid of him," said Avery, with her cheek against his

black head.

He gave a shaky laugh. "You'd fling a bucket of water over Satan himself!

I love you for not being afraid. But I don't know how you manage it, and

that's a fact. Darling, I'm a selfish brute to wear you out like this.

Send me away when you can't stand any more of me!"

"Would you go?" she said, softly stroking his cheek.

He caught her hand again and kissed it hotly, devouringly, in answer.

"But I mustn't wear you out," he said, a moment later, with an odd

wistfulness. "You mustn't let me, Avery."

She drew her hand gently away from the clinging of his lips. "No, I

won't let you," she said, in a tone he did not understand.

He clasped her to him. "It's because I worship you so," he whispered

passionately. "There is no one else in the world but you. I adore you! I

adore you!"

She closed her eyes from the fiery worship that looked forth from his.

"Piers," she said, "wait, dear, wait!"

"Why should I wait?" he demanded almost fiercely.

"Because I ask you. Because--just now--to be loved like that is more than

I can bear. Will you--can you--kiss me only, once, and go?"

He held her in his arms. He gazed long and burningly upon her. In

the end he stopped and with reverence he kissed her. "I am going,

Avery," he said.

She opened her eyes to him. "God bless you, my own Piers!" she murmured

softly, and laid her cheek for a moment against his sleeve ere he took

his arm away.

As for Piers, he went from her as if he feared to trespass, and her heart

smote her a little as she watched him go. But she would not call him

back. She went instead to one of the great bay windows and leaned against

the framework, gazing out. He was very good to her in all things, but

there were times when she felt solitude to be an absolute necessity. His

vitality, his fevered desire for her, wore upon her nerves. His attitude

towards her was not wholly natural. It held something of a menace to her

peace which disquieted her vaguely. She had a feeling that though she

knew herself to be all he wanted in the world, yet she did not succeed in

fully satisfying him. He seemed to be perpetually craving for something

further, as though somewhere deep within him there burned a fiery thirst

that nothing could ever slake. Her lightest touch seemed to awake it, and

there were moments when his unfettered passion made her afraid.

Not for worlds would she have had him know it. Her love for him was too

deep to let her shrink; and she knew that only by that love did she

maintain her ascendancy, appealing to his higher nature as only true love

can appeal. But the perpetual strain of it told upon her, and that night

she felt tired in body and soul.

The great bedroom behind her with its dark hangings and oak furniture

seemed dreary and unhome-like. She viewed the ancient and immense

four-poster with misgiving and wondered if Queen Elizabeth had ever

slept in it.

After a time she investigated Piers' room beyond, and found it less

imposing though curiously stiff and wholly lacking in ordinary

cheery comfort. Later she discovered the reason for this grim

severity of arrangement. No woman's touch had softened it for close

upon half a century.

She went back to her own room and dressed. Piers had wanted her to have a

maid, but she had refused until other changes should be made in the

establishment. There seemed so much to alter that she felt bewildered. A

household of elderly menservants presented a problem with which she knew

she would find it difficult to deal.

She put the matter gently before Piers that night, but he dismissed it

as trivial.

"You can't turn 'em off of course," he said. "But you can have a dozen

women to adjust the balance if you want 'em."

Avery did not, but she was too tired to argue the point. She let the

subject slide.

They dined together in the oak-panelled dining-room where Piers had so

often sat with his grandfather. The table seemed to stretch away

inimitably into shadows, and Avery felt like a Lilliputian. From the wall

directly facing her the last Lady Evesham smiled upon her--her baffling,

mirthless smile that seemed to cover naught but heartache. She found

herself looking up again and again to meet those eyes of mocking

comprehension; and the memory of what Lennox Tudor had once told her

recurred to her. This was Piers' Italian grandmother whose patrician

beauty had descended to him through her scapegrace son.

"Are you looking at that woman with the smile?" said Piers abruptly.

She turned to him. "You are so like her, Piers. But I wouldn't like you

to have a smile like that. There is something tragic behind it."

"We are a tragic family," said Piers sombrely. "As for her, she ruined

her own life and my grandfather's too. She might have been happy enough

with him if she had tried."

"Oh, Piers, I wonder!" Avery said, with a feeling that that smile

revealed more to her than to him.

"I say she might," Piers reiterated, with a touch of impatience. "He

thought the world of her, just as--just as--" he smiled at her

suddenly--"I do of you. He never knew that she wasn't satisfied until one

fine day she left him. She married again--afterwards, and then died. He

never got over it."

But still Avery had a vagrant feeling of pity for the woman who had been

Sir Beverley's bride. "I expect they never really understood each

other," she said.

Piers' dark eyes gleamed. "Do you know what I would have done if I had

been in his place?" he said. "I would have gone after her and brought her

back--even if I'd killed her afterwards."

His voice vibrated on a deep note of savagery. He poured out a glass of

wine with a hand that shook.

Avery said nothing, but through the silence she was conscious of the hard

throbbing of her heart. There was something implacable, something almost

cruel, about Piers at that moment. She felt as if he had bruised her

without knowing it.

And then in his sudden, bewildering way he left his chair and came to

her, stooped boyishly over her. "My darling, you're so awfully pale

to-night. Have some wine--to please me!"

She leaned her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes. "I am

a little tired, dear; but I don't want any wine. I shall be all right in

the morning."

He laid his cheek against her forehead. "I want you to drink a toast with

me. Won't you?"

"We won't drink to each other," she protested, faintly smiling. "It's

too like drinking to ourselves."

"That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me," he declared. "But we

won't toast ourselves. We'll drink to the future, Avery, and--" he

lowered his voice--"and all it contains. What?"

Her eyes opened quickly, but she did not move. "Why do you say that?"

"What?" he said again very softly.

She was silent.

He reached a hand for his own glass. "Drink with me, sweetheart!" he said

persuasively.

She suffered him to put it to her lips and drank submissively. But in a

moment she put up a restraining hand. "You finish it!" she said, and

pushed it gently towards him.

He took it and held it high. The light gleamed crimson in the wine; it

glowed like liquid fire. A moment he held it so, then without a word he

carried it to his lips and drained it.

A second later there came the sound of splintering glass, and Avery,

turning in her chair, discovered that he had flung it over his shoulder.

She gazed at him in amazement astonished by his action. "Piers!"

But something in his face checked her. "No one will ever drink out of

that glass again," he said. "Are you ready? Shall we go in the garden for

a breath of air?"

She went with him, but on the terrace outside he stopped impulsively.

"Avery darling, I don't mean to be a selfish beast; but I've got to prowl

for a bit. Would you rather go to bed?"

His arm was round her; she leaned against him half-laughing. "Do you

know, dear, that bedroom frightens me with its magnificence! Don't prowl

too long!"

He bent to her swiftly. "Avery! Do you want me?"

"Just to scare away the bogies," she made answer, with a lightness that

scarcely veiled a deeper feeling. "And when you've done that--quite

thoroughly--perhaps--" She stopped.

"Perhaps--" whispered Piers.

"Perhaps I'll tell you a secret," she said still lightly. "By the way,

dear, I found a letter from Mr. Crowther waiting for me. I put it in your

room for you to read. He writes so kindly. Wouldn't you like him to be

our first visitor?"

There was a moment's silence before Piers made answer.

"To be sure," he said then. "We mustn't forget Crowther. You wrote and

told him everything, I suppose?"

"Yes, everything. He seems very fond of you, Piers. But you must read his

letter. It concerns you quite as much as it does me. There! I am going.

Good-bye! Come up soon!"

She patted his shoulder and turned away. Somehow it had not been easy to

speak of Crowther. She had known that in doing so she had introduced an

unwelcome subject. But Crowther was too great a friend to ignore. She

felt that she had treated him somewhat casually already; for it was only

the previous week that she had written to tell him of her marriage.

Crowther was in town, studying hard for an examination, and she felt

convinced that he would be willing to pay them a visit. She also knew

that for some reason Piers was reluctant to ask him, but she felt that

that fact ought not to influence her. For she owed a debt of gratitude to

Crowther which she could never forget.

But all thought of Crowther faded from her mind when she found herself

once more in that eerie, tapestry-hung bedroom. The place had been

lighted with candles, but they only seemed to emphasize the gloom. She

wondered how often the last Lady Evesham--the warm-blooded, passionate

Italian woman with her love of the sun and all things beautiful--had

stood as she stood now and shuddered at the dreary splendour of her

surroundings. How homesick she must have been, Avery thought to herself,

as she undressed in the flickering candle-light! How her soul must have

yearned for the glittering Southern life she had left!

She thought of Sir Beverley. He must have been very like Piers in his

youth, less fierce, less intense, but in many ways practically the same,

giving much and demanding even more, restless and exacting, but withal so

lovable, so hard to resist, so infinitely dear. All her love for Piers

throbbed suddenly up to the surface. How good he was to her! What would

life be without him? She reproached herself for ingratitude and

discontent. Life was a beautiful thing if only she would have it so.

She knelt down at length by the deep cushioned window-seat and began to

pray. The night was dim and quiet, and as she prayed she gradually

forgot the shadows behind her and seemed to lose herself in the

immensity of its peace. She realized as never before that by her love

she must prevail. It was the one weapon, unfailing and invincible, that

alone would serve her, when she could rely upon no other. She knew that

he had felt its influence, that there were times when he did instinctive

reverence to it, as to that which is holy. She knew moreover that there

was that within him that answered to it as it were involuntarily--a

fiery essence in which his passion had no part which dwelt deep down in

his turbulent heart--a germ of greatness which she knew might blossom

into Love Immortal.

He was young, he was young. He wanted life, all he could get of it. And

he left the higher things because as yet he was undeveloped. He had not

felt that hunger of the spirit which only that which is spiritual can

satisfy. It would come. She was sure it would come. She was watching for

it day by day. His wings were still untried. He did not want to soar. But

by-and-bye the heights would begin to draw him. And then--then they would

soar together. But till that day dawned, her love must be the guardian of

them both.

There came a slight sound in the room behind her. She turned

swiftly. "Piers!"

He was close to her. As she started to her feet his arms enclosed her. He

looked down into her eyes, holding her fast pressed to him.

"I didn't mean to disturb you," he said. "But--when I saw you were

praying--I had to come in. I wanted so awfully to know--if you would get

an answer."

"But, Piers!" she protested.

He kissed her lips. "Don't be angry, Avery! I'm not scoffing. I don't

know enough about God to scoff at Him. Tell me! Do you ever get an

answer, or are you content to go jogging on like the rest of the

world without?"

She made an effort to free herself. "Do you know, Piers, I can't talk to

you about--holy things--when you are holding me like this."

He looked stubborn. "I don't know what you mean by holy things. I'm not a

believer. At least I don't believe in prayer. I can get all I want

without it."

"I wonder!" Avery said.

She was still trying to disengage herself, but as he held her with

evident determination she desisted.

There followed a silence during which her grey eyes met his black ones

steadily, fearlessly, resolutely. Then in a whisper Piers spoke, his lips

still close to hers. "Tell me what you were praying for, sweetheart!"

She smiled a little. "No, dear, not now! It's nothing that's in your

power to give me. Shall we sit on the window-seat and talk?"

But Piers was loath to let her go from his arms. He knelt beside her as

she sat, still holding her.

She put her arm round his neck. "Do you remember your Star of Hope?" she

asked him softly.

"I remember," said Piers, but he did not turn his eyes to the night sky;

they still dwelt upon her.

Avery's face was toward the window. The drapery fell loosely away from

her throat. He stooped forward suddenly and pressed his hot lips upon her

soft white flesh.

A little tremor went through her at his touch; she kept her face

turned from him.

"Have you really got all you want?" she asked after a moment. "Is there

nothing at all left to hope for?"

"Didn't we drink to the future only to-night?" he said.

His arms were drawing her, but still she kept her face turned away. "Did

you mean anything by that?" she asked. "Were you--were you thinking of

anything special?"

He did not at once answer her. He waited till with an odd reluctance she

turned her face towards him. Then, "I was thinking of you," he said.

Her heart gave a quick throb. "Of me?" she questioned below her breath.

"Of you," he said again. "For myself, I have got all I can ever hope for.

But you--you would be awfully happy, wouldn't you, if--"

"If--" murmured Avery.

He stooped again to kiss her white bosom. "And it would be a bond between

us," he said, as if continuing some remark he had not uttered.

She turned more fully to him. "Do we need that?" she said.

"We might--some day," he answered, in a tone that somehow made it

impossible for her to protest. "Anyhow, my darling, I knew,--I guessed.

And I'm awfully glad--for your sake."

She bent towards him. "Not for your own?" she whispered pleadingly.

He laid his head suddenly down upon her knees with a sound that was

almost a groan.

"Piers!" she said in distress.

He was silent for a space, then slowly raised himself. She had a sense

of shock at sight of his face. It looked haggard and grey, as if a

withering hand had touched him and shorn away his youth.

"Avery,--oh, Avery," he said, "I wish I were a better man!"

It was a cry wrung from his soul--the hungry cry which she had longed to

hear, and it sent a great joy through her even though it wrung her own

soul also.

She bent to him swiftly. "Dearest, we all feel that sometimes. And I

think it is the Hand of God upon us, opening our eyes."

He did not answer or make any response to her words. Only as he clasped

her to him, she heard him sigh. And she knew that, strive as he might to

silence that soul-craving with earthly things, it would beat on

unsatisfied through all. She came nearer to understanding him that night

that ever before.

CHAPTER III

THE FIRST GUEST

"I am greatly honoured to be your first guest," said Crowther.

"The honour is ours to get you," Avery declared. She sat on the terrace

whither she had conducted him, and smiled at him across the tea-table

with eyes of shining friendship.

Crowther smiled back, thinking to himself how pleasant a picture she

made. She was dressed in white, and her face was flushed and happy, even

girlish in its animation. There was a ring of laughter in her voice when

she talked that was very good to hear. She had herself just brought him

from the station in Piers' little two-seater, and her obvious pleasure at

meeting him still hung about her, making her very fair to see.

"Piers is so busy just now," she told him. "He sent all sorts of

messages. He had to go over to Wardenhurst to see Colonel Rose. The M.P.

for this division retired at the end of the Session, and Piers is to

stand for the constituency. They talk of having the election in October."

"Will he get in?" asked Crowther, still watching her with friendly

appreciation in his eyes.

"Oh, I don't know. I expect so. He gets most things that he sets his

heart on. His grandfather--you knew Sir Beverley?--was so anxious that he

should enter Parliament."

"Yes, I knew Sir Beverley," said Crowther. "He thought the world

of Piers."

"And Piers of him," said Avery.

"Ah! Was it a great blow to him when the old man died?"

"A very great blow," she answered soberly. "That was the main reason for

our marrying so suddenly. The poor boy was so lonely I couldn't bear to

think of him by himself in this great house."

"He was very lucky to get you," said Crowther gravely.

She smiled. "I was lucky too. Don't you think so? I never in my wildest

dreams pictured such a home as this for myself."

A great magnolia climbed the house behind her with creamy flowers that

shed their lemon fragrance all about them. Crowther compared her in his

own mind to the wonderful blossoms. She was so sweet, so pure, yet also

in a fashion so splendid.

"I think it is a very suitable setting for you, Lady Evesham!" he said.

She made a quick, impulsive movement towards him. "Do call me

Avery!" she said.

"Thank you," he answered, with a smile. "It certainly seems more natural.

How long have you been in this home of yours, may I ask?"

"Only a fortnight," she said, laughing. "Our honeymoon took ten weeks.

Piers wanted to make it ten years; but the harvest was coming on, and I

knew he ought to come back and see what was happening. And then Mr.

Ferrars resigned his seat, and it became imperative. But isn't it a

beautiful place?" she ended. "I felt overwhelmed by the magnificence of

it at first, but I am getting used to it now."

"A glorious place," agreed Crowther. "Piers must be very proud of it.

Have you begun to have many visitors yet?"

She shook her head. "No, not many. Nearly all the big people have gone

to Scotland. Piers says they will come later, but I shall not mind them

so much then. I shall feel less like an interloper by that time."

"I don't know why you should feel like that," said Crowther. Avery

smiled. "Well, all the little people think that I set out to catch Piers

for his money and his title."

"Does what the little people think have any weight with you?"

asked Crowther.

She flushed faintly under the kindly directness of his gaze. "Not really,

I suppose. But one can't quite shake off the feeling of it. There is the

Vicar for instance. He has never liked me. He congratulates me almost

every time we meet."

"Evidently a cad," commented Crowther in his quiet way.

Avery laughed a little. She had always liked this man's plain speech. "He

is not the only one," she said.

"But you have friends--real friends--also?" he questioned.

"Oh yes; indeed! The Vicarage children and their mother are the greatest

friends I have." Avery spoke with warmth. "The children are having tea

down in one of the cornfields now. We must go and see them presently. You

are fond of children, I know."

"I sort of love them," said Crowther with his slow, kind smile. "Ah,

Piers, my lad, are you trying to steal a march on us? Did you think I

didn't know?"

He spoke without raising his voice. Avery turned sharply to see her

husband standing on the steps of a room above them. One glimpse she had

of Piers' face ere he descended and joined them, and an odd feeling of

dismay smote her. For that one fleeting moment there seemed, to be

something of the cornered beast in his aspect.

But as he came straight down to Crowther and wrung his hand, his dark

face was smiling a welcome. He was in riding-dress, and looked very

handsome and young.

"How did you know it was I? Awfully pleased to see you! Sorry I couldn't

get back sooner. I've been riding like the devil. Avery explained, did

she?" He threw himself into a chair, and tossed an envelope into her lap.

"An invitation to Ina Rose's wedding on the twenty-third. That's the week

after next. They are sorry they can't manage to call before, hope you'll

understand and go. I said you should do both."

"Thank you, Piers." Avery laid the envelope aside unopened. She did not

feel that he was being very cordial to Crowther. "I am not sure that I

shall go."

"Oh yes, you will," he rejoined quickly. "You must. It's an order, see?"

His dark eyes laughed at her, but there was more than a tinge of

imperiousness in his manner. "Well, Crowther, how are you? Getting ready

to scatter the Philistines? Don't give me milk, Avery! You know I hate it

at this time of day."

She looked at him in surprise. He had never used that impatient tone

to her before. "I didn't know," she observed simply, as she handed

him his cup.

"Well, you know now," he rejoined with an irritable frown. "Hurry up,

Crowther! I want you to come and see the crops."

Avery was literally amazed by his manner. He had never been so frankly

and unjustifiably rude to her before. She came to the conclusion that

something had happened at the Roses' to annoy him; but that he should

visit his annoyance upon her was a wholly new experience.

He drank his tea, talking hard to Crowther the while, and finally sprang

to his feet as if in a ferment to be gone.

"Won't Lady Evesham come too?" asked Crowther, as he rose.

Avery rose also. "Yes, I have promised the children to join them in the

cornfield," she said.

Piers said nothing; but she had a very distinct impression that he would

have preferred her to remain behind. The wonder crossed her mind if he

were jealous because he could no longer have her exclusively to himself.

They walked down through the park to the farm. It was a splendid August

evening. The reaping was still in progress, and the whirr of the machine

rose slumbrous through the stillness. But of the Vicarage children there

was at first no sign.

Avery searched for them in surprise. She had sent a picnic basket down to

the farm earlier in the afternoon, and she had expected to find them

enjoying the contents thereof in a shady corner. But for a time she

searched in vain.

"They must have gone home," said Piers.

But she did not believe they would have left without seeing her, and she

went to the farm to make enquiries.

Here she heard that the picnic-party had taken place and that the basket

had been brought back by one of the men, but for some reason the children

had evidently gone home early, for they had not been seen since.

Avery wanted to run to the Vicarage and ascertain if all were well, but

Piers vetoed this.

"It's too hot," he said. "And you'll only come in for some row with the

Reverend Stephen. I won't have you go, Avery. Stay with us!"

His tone was peremptory, and Avery realized that his assumption of

authority was intentional. A rebellious spirit awoke within her, but she

checked it. Something had gone wrong, she was sure. He would tell her

presently what it was.

She yielded therefore to his desire and remained with them. They spent a

considerable time in the neighbourhood of the farm, in all of which

Crowther took a keen interest. Avery tried to be interested too, but

Piers' behaviour troubled and perplexed her. He seemed to be all on edge,

and more than once his manner to Crowther also verged upon abruptness.

They were leaving the farm to turn homeward when there came to Avery the

sound of flying feet along the lane outside. She went to the gate, and

beheld Gracie, her face crimson with heat, racing towards her.

Avery moved to meet her, surprised by her sudden appearance. She was

still more surprised when Gracie reached her, flung tempestuous arms

about her, and broke into stormy crying on her breast.

"My dear! My dear! What has happened?" Avery asked in distress.

But Gracie was for the moment quite beyond speech. She hung upon Avery,

crying as if her heart would break.

Piers came swiftly down the path. "Why, Pixie, what's the matter?" he

said.

He put his hand on her shoulder, drawing her gently to lean against

himself, for in her paroxysm of weeping she had thrown herself upon Avery

with childish unrestraint.

"Who's been bullying you, Pixie?" he said.

"Nobody! Nobody!" sobbed Gracie. She transferred herself to his arms

almost mechanically, so overwhelming was her woe. "Oh, it's dreadful!

It's dreadful!" she cried.

He patted her soothingly, his cheek against her fair hair. "Well, what is

it, kiddie? Let's hear! One of the youngsters in trouble, what? Not

Jeanie, I say?"

"No, no, no! It's--Mike." The name came out with a great burst of tears.

"Mike!" Piers looked at Avery, mystified for the moment. "Ah, to be sure!

The dog! Well, what's happened to him? He isn't dead, what?"

"He is! He is!" sobbed Gracie. "He--he has been killed--by--by his

own chain!"

"What!" said Piers again.

Gaspingly she told him the tragic tale. "Father always will have him kept

on the chain, and--and--"

"An infernally cruel thing to do!" broke indignantly from Piers.

"Yes, we--we all said so. And we tried to give him little outings

sometimes to--to make up. But to-day--somehow--we forgot him, and--and he

must have seen us go, and jumped the wall after us. Pat and I went back

afterwards to fetch him, and found him--found him--oh, Piers!" She cried

out in sudden agony and said no more.

"Choked?" said Piers. "Choked with his own chain, poor devil!" He looked

up again at Avery with something unfathomable in his eyes. "Oh, don't cry

so, child!" he said. "A chained creature is happier dead--a thousand

times happier!"

He spoke passionately, so passionately that Gracie's wild grief was

stayed. She lifted her face, all streaming with tears. "Do you think

so really?"

"Of course I think so," he said. "Life on a chain is misery unspeakable.

No one with any heart could condemn a dog to that! It's the refinement of

cruelty. Don't wish the poor beast back again! Be thankful he's gone!"

The vehemence of his speech was such that it carried conviction even to

Gracie's torn heart. She looked up at him with something of wonder and of

awe. "If only--he hadn't suffered so!" she whispered.

He put his hand on her forehead and smoothed back the clustering hair.

"You poor kid!" he said pityingly. "You've suffered much more than he did

at the end. But it's over. Don't fret! Don't fret!"

Gracie lifted trembling lips to be kissed. He was drying her eyes with

his own handkerchief as tenderly as any woman. He stooped and kissed her.

"Look here! I'll walk home with you," he said. "Avery, you go back with

Crowther! I shan't be late."

Avery turned at once. The sight of Piers soothing the little girl's

distress had comforted her subtly. She felt that his mood had softened.

"Won't you go too?" said Crowther, as she joined him. "Please don't stay

on my account! I am used to being alone, and I can find my own way back."

"Oh no!" she said. "I had better come with you. I shan't be wanted now."

They started to walk back among the shocks of corn; but they had not gone

many yards when Gracie came running after them, reached them, flung her

arms about Avery.

"Good-bye, darling Avery!" she said.

Avery held her close. She was sobbing still, but the first wild anguish

of her grief was past.

"Good-bye, darling!" Avery whispered, after a moment.

Gracie's arms tightened. "You think like Piers does?" she murmured. "You

think poor Mikey is happier now?"

Avery paused an instant. The memory of Piers' look as he had uttered the

words: "Choked with his own chain, poor devil!" seemed to grip her heart.

Then: "Yes, dearie," she said softly. "I think as Piers does. I am

glad--for poor Mikey's sake--that his troubles are over."

"Then I'll try and be glad too," sobbed poor Gracie. "But it's very, very

difficult. Pat and I loved him so, and he--he loved us."

"My dear, that love won't die," Avery said gently.

"The gift immortal," said Crowther. "The only thing that counts."

She looked round at him quickly, but his eyes were gazing straight into

the sunset--steadfast eyes that saw to the very heart of things.

"And Life in Death," he added quietly.

CHAPTER IV

THE PRISONER IN THE DUNGEON

Avery was already dressed when she heard Piers enter his room and say a

word to Victor. She stood by her window waiting. It was growing late, but

she felt sure he would come to her.

She heard Victor bustling about in his resilient fashion, and again

Piers' voice, somewhat curt and peremptory, reached her through the

closed door. He was evidently dressing at full speed. She was conscious

of a sense of disappointment, though she kept it at bay, reminding

herself that they must not keep their guest waiting.

But presently, close upon the dinner-hour, she went herself to the door

of her husband's room and knocked.

His voice answered her immediately, but it still held that unwonted

quality of irritation in it. "Oh, Avery, I can't let you in. I'm sorry.

Victor's here."

Something--a small, indignant spirit--sprang up within her in response.

"Send Victor away!" she said. "I want to come in."

"I shall be late if I do," he made answer. "I'm horribly late as it is."

But for once Avery's habitual docility was in abeyance. "Send Victor

away!" she reiterated.

She heard Piers utter an impatient word, and then in a moment or two he

raised his voice again. "Come in then! What is it?"

She opened the door with an odd unaccustomed feeling of trepidation.

He was standing in his shirt-sleeves brushing his hair vigorously at the

table. His back was towards her, but the glass reflected his face, and

she saw that his brows were drawn into a single hard black line. His lips

were tightly compressed. He looked undeniably formidable.

"Don't you want me, Piers?" she asked, pausing in the doorway.

His eyes flashed up to hers in the glass, glowing with the smouldering

fire, oddly fitful, oddly persistent. "Come in!" he said, without

turning. "What is it?"

She went forward to him. "Did you go to the Vicarage?" she asked. "Are

they in great trouble?"

She thought she saw relief in his face at her words. "Oh yes," he said.

"Mrs. Lorimer crying as usual, Jeanie trying to comfort her. I did my

best to hearten them up but you know what they are. I say, sit down!"

"No, I am going," she answered gently. "Did you get on all right this

afternoon?"

"Oh yes," he said again. "By the way, we must get a wedding-present for

Ina Rose and another for Guyes. You'll come to the wedding, Avery?"

"If you wish it, dear," she said quietly.

He threw down his brushes and turned fully to her. "Avery darling, I'm

sorry I was bearish this afternoon. You won't punish me for it?"

"Punish you, my own Piers!" she said.

"Because I can't stand it," he said recklessly. "There are certain forms

of torture that drive a man crazy. Bear with me--all you can!"

His quick pleading touched her, went straight to her heart. She put her

hands on his shoulders, lifting her face for his kiss. "It's all right,

dear," she said.

"Is it?" he said. "Is it?" He took her face between his hands, gazing

down at her with eyes of passionate craving. "Say you love me!" he urged

her suddenly. "Say it!"

Her heart sank within her. She made a movement as if to withdraw herself;

but he caught her fiercely to him, his hot lips sought and held her own.

She felt as if a flame encompassed her, scorching her, consuming her.

"Say you love me!" he whispered again between those fiery kisses.

"Avery, I must have your soul as well. Do more than bear with me! Want

me--want me!"

There was more than passion in the words. They came to her like a cry of

torment. She braced herself to meet his need, realizing it to be greater

than she knew.

"Piers! Piers!" she said. "I am altogether yours. I love you. Don't

you know it?"

He drew a deep, quivering breath. "Yes--yes, I do know it," he said.

"But--but--Avery, I would go through hell for you. You are my religion,

my life, my all. I am not that to you. If--if I were dragged down, you

wouldn't follow me in."

His intensity shocked her, but she would not have him know it. She

sought to calm his agitation though she possessed no key thereto. "My

dear," she said, "you are talking wildly. You don't know what you are to

me, and I can't even begin to tell you. But surely--by now--you can take

me on trust."

He made a curious sound that was half-laugh, half-groan. "You don't know

yourself, Avery," he said.

"But you don't doubt my love, Piers," she protested very earnestly. "You

know that it would never fail you."

"Your love is like the moonlight, Avery," he answered. "It is all

whiteness and purity. But mine--mine is red like the fire that is

under the earth. And though sometimes it scorches you, it never quite

reaches you. You stoop to me, but you can't lift me. You are too far

above. And the moonlight doesn't always reach to the prisoner in the

dungeon either."

"All the same dear, don't be afraid that it will ever fail you!" she

said.

He kissed her again, hotly, lingeringly, and let her go. "Perhaps I shall

remind you of that one day," he said.

All through dinner his spirits were recklessly high. He talked

incessantly, playing the host with a brilliant ease that betrayed no sign

of strain. He did not seem to have a care in the world, and Avery

marvelled at his versatility.

She herself felt weary and strangely sick at heart. Those few words of

his had been a bitter revelation to her. She knew now what was wanting

between them. He desired passion from her rather than love. He had no use

for spiritual things. And she,--she knew that she shrank inwardly

whenever she encountered that fierce, untamed desire of his. It fettered

her spirit, it hung upon her like an overpowering weight. She could not

satisfy his wild Southern nature. He crushed her love with the very

fierceness of his possession and ever cried to her for more. He seemed

insatiable. Even though she gave him all she had, he still hungered,

still strove feverishly to possess himself of something further.

She felt worn out, body and soul, and she could not hide it. She was

unspeakably glad when at length the meal was over and she was able to

leave the table.

Crowther opened the door for her, looking at her with eyes of kindly

criticism.

"You look tired," he said. "I hope you don't sit up late."

She smiled at him. "Oh no! We will make Piers play to us presently, and

then I will say good-night."

"Then we mustn't keep you waiting long," he said. "So Piers is a

musician, is he? I didn't know."

"You had better go to bed, Avery; it's late," said Piers abruptly. "I

can't play to-night. The spirit doesn't move me." He rose from the table

with a careless laugh. "Say good-night to her, Crowther, and let her go!

We will smoke in the garden."

There was finality in his tone, its lightness notwithstanding. Again

there came to Avery the impulse to rebel, and again instinctively she

caught it back. She held out her hand to Crowther.

"I am dismissed then," she said. "Good-night!"

His smile answered hers. He looked regretful, but very kindly. "I am glad

to see Piers takes care of you," he said.

She laughed a little drearily as she went away, making no other response.

Crowther turned back to the table with its shaded candles and gleaming

wine. He saw that Piers' glass was practically untouched.

Piers himself was searching a cabinet for cigars. He found what he

sought, and turned round with the box in his hand.

"I don't know what you generally smoke," he said. "Will you try one of

these? It's a hot night. We may as well have coffee in the garden."

He seemed possessed with a spirit of restlessness, just as he had been on

that night at the Casino in the spring. Crowther, massive and

self-contained, observed him silently.

They went out on to the terrace, and drank their coffee in the dewy

stillness. But even there Piers could not sit still. He prowled to and

fro eternally, till Crowther set down his cup and joined him, pushing a

quiet hand through his arm.

"It's a lovely place you've got here, sonny," he said; "a regular garden

of Paradise. I almost envy you."

"Oh, you needn't do that. There's a serpent in every Eden," said Piers,

with a mirthless laugh.

He did not seek to keep Crowther at arm's length, but neither did he

seem inclined for any closer intimacy. His attitude neither invited nor

repelled confidence. Yet Crowther knew intuitively that his very

indifference was in itself a barrier that might well prove

insurmountable.

He walked in silence while Piers talked intermittently of various

impersonal matters, drifting at length into silence himself.

In the western wing of the house a light burned at an upper window, and

Crowther, still quietly observant, noted how at each turn Piers' eyes

went to that light as though drawn by some magnetic force.

Gently at length he spoke. "She doesn't look altogether robust, sonny."

Piers started sharply as if something had pricked him. "What? Avery do

you mean? No, she isn't over and above strong--just now."

He uttered the last two words as if reluctantly, yet as if some measure

of pride impelled him.

Crowther's hand pressed his arm, in mute sympathy. "You are right to

take care of her," he said simply. "And Piers, my lad, I want to tell you

how glad I was to know that you were able to win her after all. I somehow

felt you would."

It was his first attempt to pass that intangible barrier, and it failed.

Piers disregarded the words as if they had not reached him.

"I don't know if I shall let her stay here through the winter," he said.

"I am not sure that the place suits her. It's damp, you know; good

hunting and so on, but a bit depressing in bad weather. Besides I'd

rather have her under a town doctor. The new heir arrives in March," he

said, with a slight laugh that struck Crowther as unconsciously pathetic.

"I'm very pleased to hear it, sonny," said Crowther. "May he be

the first of many! What does Avery think about it? I'll warrant

she's pleased?"

"Oh yes, she's pleased enough."

"And you, lad?"

"Oh yes, I'm pleased too," said Piers, but his tone lacked complete

satisfaction and he added after a moment, "I'd rather have had her to

myself a bit longer. I'm a selfish brute, you know, Crowther. I want all

I can get--and even that's hardly enough to keep me from starvation."

There was a note of banter in his voice, but there was something else as

well that touched Crowther's kindly heart.

"I don't think Avery is the sort of woman to sacrifice her husband to her

children," he said. "You will always come first, sonny,--if I know her."

"I couldn't endure anything else," said Piers, with sudden fire. "She is

the mainspring of my life."

"And you of hers," said Crowther.

Piers stopped dead in his walk and faced him. "No,--no, I'm not!" he

said, speaking quickly, unrestrainedly. "I'm a good deal to her, but I'm

not that. She gives, but she never offers. If I went off on a journey

round the world to-morrow, she'd see me go quite cheerfully, and she'd

wait serenely till I came back again. She'd never fret. Above all, she'd

never dream of coming to look for me."

The passionate utterance went into a sound that resembled a laugh, but it

was a sound of such bitterness that Crowther was strongly moved.

He put his hand on Piers' shoulder and gave it an admonitory shake. "My

dear lad, don't be a fool!" he said, with slow force. "You're consuming

your own happiness--and hers too. You can't measure a woman's feelings

like that. They are immeasurable. You can't even begin to fathom a

woman's restraint--a woman's reserve. How can she offer when you are

always demanding? As to her love, it is probably as infinitely great, as

infinitely deep, as infinitely selfless, as yours is passionate, and

fierce and insatiable. There are big possibilities in you, Piers; but

you're not letting 'em grow. It would have done you good to have been

kept waiting ten years or more. You're spoilt; that's what's the matter

with you. You got your heart's desire too easily. You think this world is

your own damn playground. And it isn't. Understand? You're put here to

work, not play; to develop yourself, not batten on other people. You won

her like a man in the face of desperate odds. You paid a heavy price for

her. But even so, you don't deserve to keep her if you forget that she

has paid too. By Heaven, Piers, she must have loved you a mighty lot to

have done it!"

He paused, for Piers had made a sharp, involuntary movement as of a man

in intolerable pain. He almost wrenched himself from Crowther's hand, and

walked to the low wall of the terrace. Here he stood for many seconds

quite motionless, gazing down over the quiet garden.

Finally he swung round, and looked at Crowther. "Yes," he said, in an odd

tone as of one repeating something learned by heart. "I've got to

remember that, haven't I? Thanks for--reminding me!" He stopped, seemed

to collect himself, moved slowly forward. "You're a good chap, Crowther,"

he said. "I wonder you've never got married yourself, what?"

Crowther waited for him quietly, in his eyes that look of the man who has

gazed for long over the wide spaces of the earth.

"I never married, sonny," he said, "because I had nothing to offer to the

woman I cared for, and so--she never knew."

"By gad, old chap, I'm sorry," said Piers impulsively.

Crowther held out a steady hand. "I'm happy enough," he said simply.

"I've got--all I want."

"All?" echoed Piers incredulously.

Crowther was smiling. He lifted his face to the night sky. "Yes,--thank

God,--all!" he said.

CHAPTER V

THE SWORD FALLS

As Miss Whalley had predicted, Ina Rose's wedding was a very grand affair

indeed. Everyone who was anyone attended it, and a good many besides. It

took place in the midst of a spell of sultry weather, during which the

sun shone day after day with brazen strength and the heat was intense.

It was the sort of weather Piers revelled in. It suited his tropical

nature. But it affected Avery very differently. All her customary energy

wilted before it, and yet she was strangely restless also. A great

reluctance to attend the wedding possessed her, wherefore she could not

have said. But for some reason Piers was determined that she should go.

He was even somewhat tyrannical on the subject, and rather than have a

discussion Avery had yielded the point. For Piers was oddly difficult in

those days. Crowther's visit, which had barely run into forty-eight

hours, seemed to have had a disquieting effect upon him. There had

developed a curious, new-born mastery in his attitude towards her, which

she sometimes found it hard to endure. She missed the chivalry of the

early days. She missed the sweetness of his boyish adoration.

She did not understand him, but she knew that he was not happy. He never

took her into his confidence, never alluded by word or sign to the change

which he must have realized that she could not fail to notice. And Avery

on her part made no further effort to open the door that was so

strenuously locked against her. With an aching heart she gave herself to

the weary task of waiting, convinced that sooner or later the nature of

the barrier which he so stubbornly ignored would be revealed to her. But

it was impossible to extend her full confidence to him. Moreover, he

seemed to shrink from all intimate subjects. Instinctively and wholly

involuntarily she withdrew into herself, meeting reserve with reserve.

Since he had become master rather than lover, she yielded him obedience,

and she hid away her love, not deliberately or intentionally, but rather

with the impulse to protect from outrage that which was holy. He was not

asking love of her just then.

She saw but little of him during the day. He was busy on the estate, busy

with the coming election, busy with a hundred and one matters that

evidently occupied his thoughts very fully. The heat seemed to imbue him

with inexhaustible energy. He never seemed tired after the most strenuous

exertion. He never slacked for a moment or seemed to have a moment to

spare till the day was done. He was generally late for meals, and always

raced through them at a speed that Avery was powerless to emulate.

He was late on the day of Ina Rose's wedding, so late that Avery, who had

dressed in good time and was lying on the sofa in her room, began to

wonder if he had after all abandoned the idea of going. But she presently

heard him race into his own room, and immediately there came the active

patter of Victor's feet as he waited upon him.

She lay still, listening, wishing that the wedding were over, morbidly

dreading the heat and crush and excitement which she knew awaited her and

to which she felt utterly unequal.

A quarter of an hour passed, then impetuously, without preliminary, her

door opened and Piers stood on the threshold. He had the light behind

him, for Avery had lowered the blinds, and so seeing him she was

conscious of a sudden thrill of admiration. For he stood before her like

a prince. She had never seen him look more handsome, more patrician, more

tragically like that woman in the picture-frame downstairs who smiled so

perpetually upon them both.

He came to her with his light, athletic tread, stooped, and lifted her

bodily in his arms. He held her a moment before he set her on her feet,

and then in his hot, fierce way he kissed her.

"You beautiful ghost!" he said.

She leaned against him, breathing rather hard. "I wish--I wish we needn't

go," she said.

"Why?" said Piers.

He held her to him, gazing down at her with his eyes of fiery possession

that always made her close her own.

"Because--because it's so hot," she said quiveringly. "There will be no

one I know there. And I--and I--"

"That's just why you are going," he broke in. "Don't you know it will be

your introduction to the County? You've got to find your footing, Avery.

I'm not going to have my wife overlooked by anyone."

"Oh, my dear," she said, with a faint laugh, "I don't care two straws

about the County. They've seen me once already, most of them,--in a ditch

and covered with mud. If they want to renew the acquaintance they can

come and call."

He kissed her again with lips that crushed her own. "We won't stay longer

than we can help," he said. "You ought to go out more, you know. It isn't

good for you to stay in this gloomy old vault all day. We will really get

to work and make it more habitable presently. But I've got such a lot on

hand just now."

"I know," she said quietly. "Please don't bother about me! Lunch is

waiting for us. Shall we go?"

He gave her a quick, keen look, as if he suspected her of trying to

elude him; but he let her go without a word.

They descended to lunch, and later went forth into the blazing sunshine

where the car awaited them. Avery sank back into the corner and closed

her eyes. Her head was aching violently. The sense of reluctance that had

possessed her for so long amounted almost to a premonition of evil.

"Avery!" Her husband's voice, curt, imperious, with just a tinge of

anxiety broke in upon her. "Are you feeling faint or anything?"

She looked at him. He was watching her with a frown between his eyes.

"No, I am not faint," she said. "The heat makes my head ache,

that's all."

"You ought to see a doctor," he said restlessly. "But not that ass,

Tudor. We'll go up to town to-morrow. Avery," his voice softened

suddenly, "I'm sorry I dragged you here if you didn't want to come."

She put out her hand to him instantly. It was the old Piers who had

spoken, Piers the boy-lover who had won her heart so irresistibly, so

completely.

He held the hand tightly, and she thought his face quivered a little as

he said: "I don't mean to be a tyrant, dear. But somehow--somehow, you

know--I can't always help it. A man with a raging thirst will

take--anything he can get."

His eyes were still upon her, and her heart quickened to compassion at

their look. They seemed to cry to her for mercy out of a depth of

suffering that she could not bear to contemplate.

She leaned swiftly towards him. "Piers,--my dear--what is it? What is

it?" she said, under her breath.

But in that instant the look vanished. The old fierce flare of passion

blazed forth upon her, held her burningly, till finally she drew back

before it in mute protest. "So you will forgive me," he said, in a tone

that seemed to contain something of a jeering quality. "We are all human,

what? You're looking better now. Egad, Avery, you're splendid!"

Her heart died within her. She turned her face away, as one ashamed.

The church at Wardenhurst was thronged with a chattering crowd of guests.

Piers and Avery arrived late, so late that they had some difficulty in

finding seats. Tudor, who was present and looking grimly disgusted with

himself, spied them at length, and gave up his place to Avery.

The bride entered almost immediately afterwards, young, lovely, with the

air of a queen passing through her subjects. Dick Guyes at the altar was

shaking with nervousness, but Ina was supremely self-possessed. She even

sent a smile of casual greeting to Piers as she went.

She maintained her attitude of complete _sang-froid_ throughout the

service, and Piers watched her critically with that secret smile at the

corners of his lips which was not good to see.

He did not seem aware of anyone else in the church till the service was

over, and the strains of the Wedding March were crashing through the

building. Then very suddenly he turned and looked at his wife--with that

in his dark eyes that thrilled her to the soul.

A man's voice accosted him somewhat abruptly. "Are you Sir Piers Evesham?

I'm the best man. They want you to sign the register."

Piers started as one rudely awakened from an entrancing dream. An

impatient exclamation rose to his lips which he suppressed rather badly.

He surveyed the man who addressed him with a touch of hauteur.

Avery surveyed him also, and as not very favourably impressed. He was a

small man with thick sandy eyebrows and shifty uncertain eyes. He looked

hard at Piers in answer to the latter's haughty regard, and Avery became

aware of a sudden sharp change in his demeanour as he did so. He opened

his eyes and stared in blank astonishment.

"Hullo!" he ejaculated softly. "You!"

"What do you mean?" demanded Piers.

It was a challenge, albeit spoken in an undertone. He stood like a man

transfixed as he uttered it. There came to Avery a quick hot impulse to

intervene, to protect him from some hidden danger, she knew not what,

that had risen like a serpent in his path. But before she could take any

action, the critical moment was passed. Piers had recovered himself.

He stepped forward. "All right. I will come," he said.

She watched him move away in the direction of the vestry with that free,

proud gait of his, and a great coldness came down upon her, wrapping her

round, penetrating to her very soul. Who was that man with the shifty

eyes? Why had he stared at Piers so? Above all, why had Piers stood with

that stiff immobility of shock as though he had been stabbed in the back?

A voice spoke close to her. "Lady Evesham, come and wait by the door!

There is more air there."

She turned her head mechanically, and looked at Lennox Tudor with eyes

that saw not. There was a singing in her ears that made the crashing

chords of the organ sound confused and jumbled.

His hand closed firmly, sustainingly, upon her elbow.

"Come with me!" he said.

She went with him blindly, unconscious of the curious eyes that

watched her go.

He led her quietly down the church and into the porch. The air from

outside, albeit hot and sultry, was less oppressive than within. She drew

great breaths of relief as it reached her. The icy grip at her heart

seemed to relax.

Tudor watched her narrowly. "What madness brought you here?" he said

presently, as she turned at last and mustered a smile of thanks.

She countered the question. "I might ask you the same," she said.

His eyes contracted behind the shielding glasses. "So you might," he said

briefly. "Well,--I came on the chance of meeting you."

"Of meeting me!" She looked at him in surprise.

He nodded. "Just so. I want a word with you; but it can't be said here.

Give me an opportunity later if you can!"

His hand fell away from her elbow, he drew back. The bridal procession

was coming down the church.

Ina was flushed and laughing. Dick Guyes still obviously nervous, but,

also obviously, supremely happy. They went by Avery into a perfect storm

of rose-leaves that awaited them from the crowd outside. Yet for one

moment the eyes of the bride rested upon Avery, meeting hers almost as if

they would ask her a question. And behind her--immediately behind

her--came Piers.

His eyes also found Avery, and in an instant with a haughty disregard of

Tudor, he had swept her forward with him, his arm thrust imperially

through hers. They also weathered the storm of rose-leaves, and as they

went Avery heard him laugh,--the laugh of the man who fights with his

back to the wall.

They were among the first to offer congratulations to the bride and

bridegroom, and again Avery was aware of the girl's eyes searching hers.

"I haven't forgotten you," she said, as they shook hands. "I knew you

would be Lady Evesham sooner or later after that day when you kept the

whole Hunt at bay."

Avery felt herself flush. There seemed to her to be a covert insinuation

in the remark. "I was very grateful to you for taking my part," she said.

"It was rather generous certainly," agreed the bride coolly. "Dick, do

get off my train! You're horribly clumsy to-day."

The bridegroom hastened to remove himself to a respectful distance, while

Ina turned her pretty cheek to Piers. "You may salute the bride," she

said graciously. "It's the only opportunity you will ever have."

Piers kissed the cheek as airily as it was proffered, his dark eyes

openly mocking. "Good luck to you, Ina!" he said lightly. "I wish you the

first and best of all that's most worth having."

Her red lips curled in answer. "You are superlatively kind," she said.

Other guests came crowding round with congratulations, and they moved on.

Piers knew everyone there, and presented one after another to his wife

till she felt absolutely bewildered. He did not present the best man, who

to her relief seemed disposed to keep out of their way. She wondered

greatly if anything had passed between him and Piers, though by the

latter at least the incident seemed to be wholly forgotten. He was in his

gayest, most sparkling mood, and she could not fail to see that he was

very popular whichever way he turned. People kept claiming his attention,

and though he tried to remain near her he was drawn away at last by the

bridegroom himself.

Avery looked round her then for a quiet corner where Tudor might

find her if he so desired, but while she was searching she came upon

Tudor himself.

He joined her immediately, with evident relief. "For Heaven's sake, let

us get away from this gibbering crowd!" he said. "They are like a horde

of painted monkeys. Come alone to the library! I don't think there are

many people there."

Avery accompanied him, equally thankful to escape. They found the

library deserted, and Tudor made her sit down by the window in the most

comfortable chair the room contained.

"You look about as fit for this sort of show as Mrs. Lorimer," he

observed drily. "She had the sense to stay away."

"I couldn't," Avery said.

"For goodness' sake," he exclaimed roughly, "don't let that young ruffian

tyrannize over you! You will never know any peace if you do."

Avery smiled a little and was silent.

"Why are you so painfully thin?" he pursued relentlessly. "What's

the matter with you? When I saw you in church just now I had a

positive shock."

She put out her hand to him. "I am quite all right," she assured him,

still faintly smiling. "I should have sent for you if I hadn't been."

"It's high time you sent for me now," said Tudor.

He looked at her searchingly through his glasses, holding her hand firmly

clasped in his.

"Are you happy?" he asked her suddenly.

She started at the question, started and flushed. "Why--why do you ask me

that?" she said in confusion.

"Because you don't look it," he said plainly. "No, don't be vexed with

me! I speak as a friend--a friend who desires your happiness more than

anything else on earth. And do you know, I think I should see a doctor

pretty soon if I were you. If you don't, you will probably regret it. Get

Piers to take you up to town! Maxwell Wyndham is about the best man I

know. Go to him!"

"Thank you," Avery said. "Perhaps I will."

It was at this point that a sudden uproarious laugh sounded from

below the window near which they sat, Avery looked round startled,

and Tudor frowned.

"It's that little brute of a best man--drunk as a lord. He's some sort

of cousin of Guyes', just home from Australia; and the sooner he goes

back the better for the community at large, I should say."

"Piers knows him!" broke almost involuntarily from Avery.

And with that swiftly she turned her head to listen, for the man outside

had evidently gathered to himself an audience at the entrance of a tent

that had been erected for refreshments, and was declaiming at the top of

his voice.

"Eric Denys was the name of the man. He was a chum of mine. Samson we

used to call him. This Evesham fellow killed him in the first round. I've

never forgotten it. I recognized him the minute I set eyes on him, though

it's years ago now. And he recognized me! I wish you'd seen his face."

Again came the uncontrolled, ribald laughter. "A bully sort of squire,

eh? I suppose he's a justice of the peace now, a law-giver, eh? Damn

funny, I call it!"

Tudor was on his feet. He looked at Avery, but she sat like a statue,

making no sign.

Another man was speaking in a lower tone, as though he were trying to

restrain the first; but his efforts were plainly useless, for the best

man had more to say.

"Oh, I can tell you a Queensland crowd is no joke. He'd have been

manhandled if he hadn't bolted. Mistaken? Not I! Could anyone mistake a

face like that? Go and ask the man himself, if you don't believe me!

You'll find he won't deny it!"

"Shall we go?" suggested Tudor brusquely.

Avery made a slight movement, wholly mechanical; but she did not turn her

head. Her whole attitude was one of tense listening.

"I think I'll go in any case," said Tudor, after a moment. "That fellow

will make an exhibition of himself if someone doesn't interfere."

He went to the door, but before he reached it Avery turned in her chair

and spoke.

"He has gone inside for another drink. You had better let him have it."

There was that in her voice that he had never heard before. He stopped

short, looking back at her.

"Let him have it!" she reiterated. "Let him soak himself with it! You

won't quiet him any other way."

Even as she spoke, that horrible, half-intoxicated laugh came to

them, insulting the beauty of the summer afternoon. Avery shivered

from head to foot.

"Don't go!" she said. "Please!"

She rose as Tudor came back, rose and faced him, her face like death.

"I think I must go home," she said. "Will you find the car? No, I am not

ill. I--" She paused, seemed to grope for words, stopped, and suddenly a

bewildered look came into her face. Her eyes dilated. She gave a sharp

gasp. Tudor caught her as she fell.

CHAPTER VI

THE MASK

The bride and bridegroom departed amid a storm of rice and good wishes,

Ina's face still wearing that slightly contemptuous smile to the last.

Piers, in the foremost of the crowd, threw a handful straight into her

lap as the car started, but only he and Dick Guyes saw her gather it up

with sudden energy and fling it back in his face.

Piers dropped off the step laughing. "Ye gods! What fun for Dick

Guyes!" he said.

A hand grasped his shoulder, and he turned and saw Lennox Tudor.

"Hullo!" he said, sharply freeing himself.

"I want a word with you," said Tudor briefly.

A wary look came into Piers' face on the instant. He looked at Tudor with

the measuring eye of a fencer.

"What about?" he asked.

"I can't tell you here. Will you walk back with me? Lady Evesham has

already gone in the car."

Piers' black brows went up, "Why was that? Wasn't she well?"

"No," said Tudor curtly.

"But she will send the car back," said Piers, stubbornly refusing to

betray himself.

"No, she won't. I told her we would walk."

"The devil you did!" said Piers.

He turned his back on Tudor, and went into the house.

But Tudor was undaunted. In a battle of wills, he was fully a match for

Piers. He kept close behind.

Eventually, Piers turned upon him. "Look here! I'll give you five minutes

in the library. I'm not going to walk three miles with you in this

blazing heat. It would be damned unhealthy for us both. Moreover, I've

promised to spend the evening with Colonel Rose."

It was the utmost he could hope for, and Tudor had the sense to accept

what he could get. He followed him to the library in silence.

They found it empty, and Tudor quietly turned the key.

"What's that for?" demanded Piers sharply.

"Because I don't want to be disturbed," returned Tudor.

He moved forward into the middle of the room and faced Piers.

"I have an unpleasant piece of news for you," he said, in a grim,

emotionless voice. "That cousin of Guyes'--you have met him before, I

think? He claims to know something of your past, and he has been

talking--somewhat freely."

"What has he been saying?" said Piers.

He stood up before Tudor with the arrogance of a man who mocks defeat,

but there was a gleam of desperation in his eyes--something of the

cornered animal in his very nonchalance.

A queer touch of pity moved Tudor from his attitude of cold informer.

There was an undercurrent of something that was almost sympathy in his

voice as he made reply.

"The fellow was more or less drunk, but I am afraid he was rather

circumstantial. He recognized in you a man who had killed some chum of

his years ago, in Queensland."

"Well?" said Piers.

Just the one word, uttered like a command! Tudor's softer impulse passed.

"He was bawling it out at the top of his voice. A good many people must

have heard him. I was in this room with Lady Evesham. We heard also."

"Well?" Piers said again.

He spoke without stirring an eyelid, and again, involuntarily, Tudor was

moved, this time with a species of unwilling admiration. The fellow was

no coward at least.

He went on steadily. "It was impossible not to hear what the beast said.

He mentioned names also,--your name and the name of the man whom he

alleged you had killed. Lady Evesham heard it. We both heard it."

He paused. Piers had not moved. His face was like a mask in its

composure, but it was a dreadful mask. Tudor had a feeling that it hid

unutterable things.

"What was the man's name?" Piers asked, after a moment.

"Denys--Eric Denys."

Piers nodded, as one verifying a piece of information. His next question

came with hauteur and studied indifference.

"Lady Evesham heard, you say? Did she pay any attention to these maudlin

revelations?"

"She fainted," said Tudor shortly.

"Oh? And what happened then?"

It was maddeningly cold-blooded; but it was the mask that spoke. Tudor

recognized that.

"I brought her round," he made answer. "No one else was present. She

begged me to let her go home alone. I did so."

"She also asked you to make full explanation to me?" came in measured

tones from Piers.

"She did." Tudor paused a moment as though he found some difficulty in

forming his next words. But he went on almost at once with resolution.

"She said to me at parting: 'I must be alone. I must think. Beg Piers to

understand! Beg him not to see me again to-day! I will talk to him in

the morning!' I promised to deliver the message exactly as she gave it."

"Thank you," said Piers. He turned with the words, moved away to the

window, and looked forth at the now deserted marquee.

Tudor stood mutely waiting; he felt as if it had been laid upon

him to wait.

Suddenly Piers jerked his head round and glanced at the chair in which

Avery had been sitting, then abruptly turned himself and looked at Tudor.

"What were you--and my wife--doing in here?" he said.

Tudor frowned impatiently at the question. "Oh, don't be a fool,

Evesham!" he said with vehemence.

"I'm not a fool." Piers left the window with the gait of a prowling

animal; he stood again face to face with the other man. But though his

features were still mask-like, his eyes shone through the mask; and they

were eyes of leaping flame. "Oh, I am no fool, I assure you," he said,

and in his voice there sounded a deep vibration that was almost like a

snarl. "I know you too well by this time to be hoodwinked. You would come

between us if you could."

"You lie!" said Tudor.

He did not raise his voice or speak in haste. His vehemence had departed.

He simply made the statement as if it had been a wholly impersonal one.

Piers' hands clenched, but they remained at his sides. He looked at Tudor

hard, as if he did not understand him.

After a moment Tudor spoke again. "I am no friend of yours, and I never

shall be. But I am the friend of your wife, and--whether you like it or

not--I shall remain so. For that reason, whatever I do will be in your

interests as well as hers. I have not the smallest intention or desire to

come between you. And if you use your wits you will see that I couldn't

if I tried. Your marriage with her tied my hands."

"What proof have I of that?" said Piers, his voice low and fierce.

Tudor made a slight gesture of disgust. "I am dealing with facts, not

proofs," he said. "You know as well as I do that though you obtained her

love on false pretences, still you obtained it. Whether you will keep it

or not remains to be seen, but she is not the sort of woman to solace

herself with anyone else. If you lose it, it will be because you failed

to guard your own property--not because anyone deprived you of it."

"Damnation!" exclaimed Piers furiously, and with the word the storm of

his anger broke like a fiery torrent, sweeping all before it, "are you

taking me to task, you--you--for this accursed trick of Fate? How was I

to know that this infernal little sot would turn up here? Why, I don't so

much as know the fellow's name! I had forgotten his very existence! Where

the devil is he? Let me find him, and break every bone in his body!" He

whirled round to the door, but in a moment was back again. "Tudor! Damn

you! Where's the key?"

"In my pocket," said Tudor quietly. "And, Piers, before you go--since I

am your ally in spite of myself--let me warn you to keep your head!

There's no sense in murdering another man. It won't improve your case.

There's no sense in running amok. Sit down for Heaven's sake, and review

the situation quietly!"

The calm words took effect. Piers stopped, arrested in spite of himself

by the other's steady insistence. He looked at Tudor with half-sullen

respect dawning behind his ungoverned fury.

"Listen!" Tudor said. "The fellow has gone. I packed him off myself. It

was a piece of sheer ill-luck that brought him home in time for this

show. He starts for America _en route_ for Australia in less than a week,

and it is utterly unlikely that either you or any of your friends will

see or hear anything more of him. Guyes himself is by no means keen on

him and only had him as best man because a friend failed him at the last

minute. If you behave rationally the whole affair will probably pass off

of itself. Everyone knows the fellow was intoxicated, and no one is

likely to pay any lasting attention to what he said. Treat the matter as

unworthy of notice, and you will very possibly hear no more of it! But if

you kick up a row, you will simply court disaster. I am an older man than

you are. Take my word for it,--I know what I am talking about."

Piers listened in silence. The heat had gone from his face, but his eyes

still gleamed with a restless fire.

Tudor watched him keenly. Not by his own choice would he have ranged

himself on Piers' side, but circumstances having placed him there he was

oddly anxious to effect his deliverance. He was fighting heavy odds, and

he knew it, but there was a fighting strain in his nature also. He

relished the odds.

"For Heaven's sake don't be a fool and give the whole show away!" he

urged. "You have no enemies. No one will want to take the matter up if

you will only let it lie. No one wants to believe evil of you. Possibly

no one will."

"Except yourself!" said Piers, with a smile that showed his set teeth.

"Quite so." Tudor also smiled, a grim brief smile. "But then I happen to

know you better than most. You gave yourself away so far as I am

concerned that night in the winter. I knew then that once upon a time in

your career--you had--killed a man."

"And you didn't tell Avery!" The words shot out unexpectedly. Piers was

plainly astonished.

"I'm not a woman!" said Tudor contemptuously. "That affair was

between us two."

"Great Scott!" said Piers.

"At the same time," Tudor continued sternly, "if I had known what I know

now, I would have told her everything sooner than let her ruin her

happiness by marrying you."

Piers made a sharp gesture that passed unexplained. He had made no

attempt at self-defence; he made none then. Perhaps his pride kicked at

the idea; perhaps in the face of Tudor's shrewd grip of the situation it

did not seem worth while.

He held out his hand. "May I have that key?"

Tudor gave it to him. He was still watching narrowly, but Piers' face

told him nothing. The mask had been replaced, and the man behind it was

securely hidden from scrutiny. Tudor would have given much to have rent

it aside, and have read the thoughts and intentions it covered. But he

knew that he was powerless. He knew that he was deliberately barred out.

Piers went to the door and fitted the key into the lock. His actions were

all grimly deliberate. The volcanic fires which Tudor had seen raging but

a few seconds before had sunk very far below the surface. Whatever was

happening in the torture-chamber where his soul agonized, it was certain

that no human being--save possibly one--would ever witness it. What he

suffered he would suffer in proud aloofness and silence. It was only the

effect of that suffering that could ever be made apparent, when the soul

came forth again, blackened and shrivelled from the furnace.

Yet ere he left Tudor, some impulse moved him to look back.

He met Tudor's gaze with brooding eyes which nevertheless held a faint

warmth like the dim reflection of a light below the horizon.

"I am obliged to you," he said, and was gone before Tudor could

speak again.

CHAPTER VII

THE GATES OF HELL

Up and down, up and down, in a fever of restlessness, Avery walked. She

felt trapped. The gloomy, tapestried room seemed to close her in like a

prison. The whole world seemed to have turned into a monstrous place of

punishment. One thing only was needed to complete the anguish of her

spirit, and that was the presence of her husband.

She could not picture the meeting with him. Body and soul recoiled from

the thought. It would not be till the morning; that was her sole comfort.

By the morning this fiery suffering would have somewhat abated. She would

be calmer, more able to face him and hear his defence--if defence there

could be. Somehow she never questioned the truth of the story. She knew

that Tudor had not questioned it either. She knew moreover that had it

been untrue, Piers would have been with her long ago in vehement

indignation and wrath.

No, the thing was true. He was the man who had wrecked her life at its

beginning, and now--now he had wrecked it again. He was the man whose

hands were stained with her husband's blood. He had done the deed in one

of those wild tempests of anger with which she was so familiar. He had

done the deed, possibly unintentionally, but certainly with murderous

impulse; and then deliberately cynically, he had covered it up, and gone

his arrogant way.

He had met her, he had desired her; with a few, quickly-stifled qualms

he had won her, trusting to luck that his sin would never find him out.

And so he had made her his own, his property, his prisoner, the slave of

his pleasure. She was bound for ever to her husband's murderer.

Again body and soul shrank in quivering horror from the thought, and a

wild revolt awoke within her. She could not bear it. She must break free.

The bare memory of his passion sickened her. For the first time in her

life hatred, fiery, intense, kindled within her. The thought of his touch

filled her with a loathing unutterable. He had become horrible to her, a

thing unclean, abominable, whose very proximity was pollution. She felt

as if the blood on his hands had stained her also--the blood of the man

she had once loved. For a space she became like a woman demented. The

thing was too abhorrent to be endured.

And then by slow degrees her brain began to clear again. She grew a

little calmer. Monstrous though he was, he was still human. He was, in a

fashion, at her mercy. He had sinned, but it was in her hands that his

punishment lay.

She was stronger than he. She had always known it. But she must keep her

strength. She must not waste it in futile resentment. She would need it

all. He had entered her kingdom by subtlety; but she would drive him

forth in the strength of a righteous indignation. To suffer him to remain

was unthinkable. It would be to share his guilt.

Her thoughts tried to wander into the future, but she called them

resolutely back. The future would provide for itself. Her immediate duty

was all she now needed to face. When that dreaded interview was over,

when she had shut him out finally and completely then it would be time

enough to consider that. Probably some arrangement would have to be made

by which they would meet occasionally, but as husband and wife--never,

never more.

It was growing late. The dinner-gong had sounded, but she would not go

down. She rang for Victor, and told him to bring her something on a tray.

It did not matter what.

He looked at her with keen little eyes of solicitude, and swiftly obeyed

her desire. He then asked her if the dinner were to be kept for _Monsieur

Pierre_, who had not yet returned. She did not know what to say, but lest

he should wonder at her ignorance of Piers' doings, she answered in the

negative, and Victor withdrew.