"I don't suppose so," said Avery; yet her heart jerked oddly as she slipped them into her dress. "Thank you for taking care of them. I must be going now. You are going to be good?"

She looked at Julian, who, still feeling generous, thrust a rough, boyish arm about her neck and kissed her.

"You're a trump!" he said. "There! Good-night! I'll be as meek as Moses in the morning."

It was a definite promise, and Avery felt relieved. She took leave of Ronald more ceremoniously. His scrupulous politeness demanded it. And then with feet that felt strangely light, considering her fatigue, she ran softly down again to Mrs. Lorimer's room.

In the dressing-room adjoining, she opened and read her letters. One of them—the one with the Australian stamp, characteristically brief but kind—was to tell her that the writer, a friend of some standing, was coming to England, and hoped to see her again ere long.

The other, bearing the sinister Evesham crest, lay on the table unopened till she was undressed and ready to join Mrs. Lorimer. Then—for the first time in all that weary day of turmoil—Avery stole a few moments of luxury.

She sat down and opened Piers' letter.

It began impetuously, without preliminary. "I wonder whether you have any idea what it costs to clear out without a word of farewell. Perhaps you are even thinking that I've forgotten. Or perhaps it matters so little to you that you haven't thought at all. I know you won't tell me, so it's not much good speculating. But lest you should misunderstand in any way, I want to explain that I haven't been fit to come near you since we parted on Christmas Eve. You were angry with me then, weren't you? Avery in a temper! Do you remember how it went? At least you meant to be, but somehow you didn't get up the steam. You wished me a happy Christmas instead, and I ought to have had one in consequence. But I didn't. I played the giddy goat off and on all day long, and my grandfather—dear old chap—thought what a merry infant I was. But—you've heard of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched? The Reverend Stephen has taken care of that. Do you remember his 'penny-terrible' of a Sunday or two ago? You were very angry about it, Avery. I love you when you're angry. And how he dilated on the gates of brass and the bars of iron and the outer darkness etc, etc, till we all went home and shivered in our beds! Well, that's the sort of place I spent my Christmas in, and I wanted to come to you and Jeanie and be made happy, but—I couldn't. I was too fast in prison. I felt too murderous. I hunted all the next day to try and get more wholesome. But it was no good. I was seeing red all the time. And at night something happened that touched me off like an exploded train of gunpowder. Has Tudor told you about it yet? Doubtless he will. I tried to murder him, and succeeded in cracking his eye-glass. Banal, wasn't it? And I have an uneasy feeling that he came out top-dog after all, confound him!

"Avery, whomever else you have no use for, I know you're not in love with him, and in my saner moments I realize that you never could be. But I wasn't sane just then. I love you so! I love you so! It's good to be able to get it right out before you have time to stop me. For I worship you, Avery, my darling! You don't realize it. How should you? You think it is just the passing fancy of a boy. A boy—ye gods!

"I think of you hour by hour. You are always close in your own secret place in my heart. I hold you in my arms when no one else is near. I kiss your forehead, your eyes, your hair. No, not your lips, dear, even in fancy. I have never in my maddest dreams kissed your lips. But I ache and crave and long for them, though—till you give me leave—I dare not even pretend that they are mine. Will you ever give me leave? You say No now. Yet I think you will, Avery. I think you will. I have known ever since that first moment when you held me back from flaying poor old Caesar that I have met my Fate, and because I know it I'm trying—for your sweet sake—to make myself a better man. It's beastly uphill work, and that episode with Tudor has pulled me back. Confound him! By the way though, it's done me good in one sense, for I find I don't detest him quite so hideously as I did. The man has his points.

"And now Avery,—dear Avery, will you forgive me for writing all this? I know you won't write to me, but I send my address in case! And I shall watch every mail day after day, night after night, for the letter that will never come.

"Pathetic picture, isn't it? Good-bye!

"PIERS.

"My love to the Queen of all good fairies, and tell Pixie that I hope the gloves fitted."

Avery's lips parted in a smile; a soft flush overspread her face. That costly gift from the children—she had guessed from the beginning whence it came.

And then slowly, even with reverence, she folded the letter up, and rose. Her smile became a little tremulous. It had been a day of many troubles, and she was very tired. The boy's adoration was strangely sweet to her wearied senses. She felt subtly softened and tender towards him.

No, it must not be! It could not be! He must forget her. She would write to-morrow and tell him so. Yet for that one night the charm held her. She viewed from afar an enchanted land—a land of sunshine and singing birds—a land where it was always spring. It was a country she had seen before, but only in her dreams. Her feet had never wandered there. The path she had followed had not led to it. Perhaps it was all a mirage. Perhaps there was no path.

Yet in her dreams she crossed the boundary, and entered the forbidden land.



CHAPTER XXII

THE COMING OF A FRIEND

"Eternal sunshine!" said Piers, with a grimace at the deep, deep blue of the slumbering water that stretched below him to the horizon. "And at night eternal moonshine. Romantic but monotonous. I wonder if the post is in."

He cast an irresolute glance up the path behind him, but decided to remain where he was. He had looked so many times in vain.

There were a good many people in the hotel, but he was not feeling sociable. The night before he had dropped a considerable sum at the Casino, but it had not greatly interested him. Regretfully he had come to the conclusion that gambling in that form did not attract him. The greedy crowd that pushed and strove in the heated rooms, he regarded as downright revolting. He himself had been robbed with astonishing audacity by a lady with painted eyes who had snatched his only winnings before he could reach them. It was a small episode, and he had let it pass, but it had not rendered the tables more attractive. He had in fact left them in utter disgust.

Altogether he was feeling decidedly out of tune with his surroundings that morning, and the beauty of the scene irritated rather than soothed him. In the garden a short distance from him, a voluble French party were chattering with great animation and a good deal of cackling laughter. He wondered what on earth they found to amuse them so persistently. He also wondered if a swim in that faultless blue would do anything to improve his temper, and decided with another wry grimace that it was hardly worth while to try.

It was at this point that there fell a step on the winding path below him that led down amongst shrubs to the sea. The top of a Panama hat caught Piers' attention. He watched it idly as it ascended, speculating without much interest as to the face beneath it. It mounted with the utmost steadiness, neither hastening nor lingering. There was something about its unvarying progress that struck Piers as British. His interest increased at once. He suddenly discovered that he wanted someone British to talk to, forgetting the fact that he had fled but ten minutes before from the boring society of an Anglo-Indian colonel.

The man in the Panama came nearer. Piers from above began to have a glimpse of a tweed coat and a strong brown hand that swung in time to the steady stride. The path curved immediately below him, and the last few yards of it led directly to the spot on which he stood. As the stranger rounded the curve he came into full view.

He was a big man, broadly built and powerful. His whole personality was suggestive of squareness. And yet to Piers' critical eyes he did not look wholly British. His gait was that of a man accustomed to long hours in the saddle. Under the turned-down Panama the square, determined chin showed massively. It was a chin that obviously required constant shaving.

Quietly the man drew near. He did not see Piers under his lowered hat-brim till he was within a few feet of him. Then, becoming suddenly aware of him, he raised his eyes. A moment later, his hand went up in a brief, friendly salute.

Piers' hand made instant response. "Splendid morning!" he began to say—and stopped with the words half-uttered. The blood surged up to his forehead in a great wave. "Good Heavens!" he said instead.

The other man paused. He did not look at Piers very narrowly, but merely glanced towards him and then turned his eyes towards the wonderful, far-stretching blue below them.

"Yes, splendid," he said quietly. "Worth remembering—a scene like this."

His tone was absolutely impersonal. He stood beside Piers for a moment or two, gazing forth into the infinite distance; then with a slight gesture of leave-taking he turned as if to continue his progress.

In that instant, however, Piers recovered himself sufficiently to speak. His face was still deeply flushed, but his voice was steady enough as he turned fully and addressed the new-comer.

"Don't you know me? We have met before."

The other man stopped at once. He held out his hand. "Yes, of course I know you—knew you the moment I set eyes on you. But I wasn't sure that you would care to be recognized by me."

"What on earth do you take me for?" said Piers bluntly.

He gripped the hand hard, looking straight into the calm eyes with a curious sense of being sustained thereby. "I believe," he said, with an odd impulse of impetuosity, "that you are the one man in the world that I couldn't be other than pleased to see."

The elder man smiled. "That's very kind of you," he said.

He had the slow speech of one accustomed to solitude. He kept Piers' hand in his in a warm, firm grip. "I have often thought about you," he said. "You know, I never heard your name."

"My name is Evesham," said Piers, with the quick, gracious manner habitual to him. "Piers Evesham."

"Thank you. Mine is Edmund Crowther. Odd that we should meet like this!"

"A piece of luck I didn't expect!" said Piers boyishly. "Have you only just arrived?"

"I came here last night from Marseilles." Crowther's eyes rested on the smiling face with its proud, patrician features with the look of a man examining a perfect bronze. "It's very kind of you to welcome me like this," he said. "I was feeling a stranger in a strange land as I came up that path."

"I've been watching you," said Piers. "I liked the business-like way you tackled it. It was British."

Crowther smiled. "I suppose it has become second nature with me to put business first," he said.

"Wish I could say the same," said Piers; and then, with his hand on the other man's arm: "Come and have a drink! You are staying for some time, I hope?"

"No, not for long," said Crowther. "It was yielding to temptation to come here at all."

"Are you alone?" asked Piers.

"Quite alone."

"Then there's no occasion to hurry," said Piers. "You stay here for a bit, and kill time with me."

"I never kill time," said Crowther deliberately. "It's too scarce a commodity."

"It is when you're happy," said Piers.

Crowther looked at him with a question in his eyes that he did not put into words, and in answer to which Piers laughed a reckless laugh.

They were walking side by side up the hotel-garden, and each successive group of visitors that they passed turned to stare. For both men were in a fashion remarkable. The massive strength of the elder with his square, dogged face and purposeful stride; the lithe, muscular power of the younger with his superb carriage and haughty nobility of feature, formed a contrast as complete as it was arresting.

They ascended the steps that led up to the terrace, and here Piers paused. "You sit down here while I go and order drinks! Here's a comfortable seat, and here's an English paper!"

He thrust it into Crowther's hand and departed with a careless whistle on his lips. But Crowther did not look at the paper. His eyes followed Piers as long as he was in sight, and then with that look in them as of one who watches from afar turned contemplatively towards the sea. After a little he took his hat off and suffered the morning-breeze to blow across his forehead. He had the serene brow of a child, though the hair above it was broadly streaked with grey.

He was still sitting thus when there came the sound of jerky footsteps on the terrace behind him and an irascible voice addressed him with scarcely concealed impatience.

"Excuse me! I saw you talking to my grandson just now. Do you know where the young fool is gone to?"

Crowther turned in his solid, imperturbable fashion, looked at the speaker, and got to his feet.

"I can," he said, with a smile. "He has gone to procure drinks in my honour. He and I are—old friends."

"Oh!" said Sir Beverley, and looked him up and down in a fashion which another man might have found offensive. "And who may you be?"

"My name is Crowther," said the other with simplicity.

Sir Beverley grunted. "That doesn't tell me much. Never heard of you before."

"I daresay not." Crowther was quite unmoved; there was even a hint of humour in his tone. "Your grandson is probably a man of many friends."

"Why should you say that?" demanded Sir Beverley suspiciously.

"Won't you sit down?" said Crowther.

Sir Beverley hesitated a moment, then abruptly complied with the suggestion. Crowther followed his example, and they faced one another across the little table.

"I say it," said Crowther, "because that is the sort of lad I take him to be."

Sir Beverley grunted again. "And when and where did you make his acquaintance?" he enquired, with a stern, unsparing scrutiny of the calm face opposite.

"We met in Australia," said Crowther. "It must be six years or more ago."

"Australia's a big place," observed Sir Beverley.

Crowther's slow smile appeared. "Yes, sir, it is. It's so mighty big that it makes all the other places of the world seem small. Have you ever been in Queensland—ever seen a sheep-farm?"

"No, I've never been in Queensland," snapped Sir Beverley. "But as to sheep-farms, I've got one of my own."

"How many acres?" asked Crowther.

"Oh, don't ask me! Piers will tell you. Piers knows. Where the devil is the boy? Why doesn't he come?"

"Here, sir, here!" cried Piers, coming up behind him. "I see you have made the acquaintance of my friend. Crowther, let me present you to my grandfather, Sir Beverley Evesham! I've just been to look for you," he added to the latter. "But Victor told me you had gone out, and then I spied you out of the window."

"I told you I was coming out, didn't I?" growled Sir Beverley. "So this is a friend of yours, is it? How is it I've never heard of him before?"

"We lost sight of each other," explained Piers, pulling forward a chair between them and dropping into it. "But that state of affairs is not going to happen again. How long are you over for, Crowther?"

"Possibly a year, possibly more." Again Crowther's eyes were upon him, critical but kindly.

"Going to spend your time in England?" asked Piers.

Crowther nodded. "Most of it, yes."

"Good!" said Piers with satisfaction. "We shall see plenty of you then."

"But I am going to be busy," said Crowther, with a smile.

"Of course you are. You can come down and teach me how to make the Home Farm a success," laughed Piers.

"I shall be very pleased to try," said Crowther, "though," he turned towards Sir Beverley, "I expect you, sir, know as much on that subject as either of us."

Sir Beverley's eyes were upon him with searching directness. He seemed to be trying to discover a reason for his boy's obvious pleasure in his unexpected meeting with this man who must have been nearly twice his age.

"I've never done much in the farming line," he said briefly, in answer to Crowther's observation. "It's been more of a pastime with me than anything else. It's the same with Piers here. He's only putting in time with it till the constituency falls vacant."

"I see," said Crowther, adding with his quiet smile: "There seems to be plenty of time anyhow in the old country, whatever else she may be short of."

Piers laughed as he lifted his glass. "Time for everything but work, Crowther. She has developed beastly loose morals in her old age. Some day there'll come a nasty bust up, and she may pull herself together and do things again, or she may go to pieces. I wonder which."

"I don't," said Crowther.

"You don't?" Piers paused, glass in hand, looking at him expectantly.

"No, I don't." Crowther also raised his glass; he looked Piers straight in the eyes. "Here's to the boys of England, Piers!" he said. "They'll see to it that she comes through."

Sir Beverley also drank, but with a distasteful air. "You've a higher opinion of the young fools than I have," he remarked.

"I've made a study of the breed, sir," said Crowther.

The conversation drifted to indifferent matters, but Piers' interest remained keen. It seemed that all his vitality had reawakened at the coming of this slow-speaking man who had looked so long upon the wide spaces of the earth that his vision seemed scarcely adaptable to lesser things. There was that in his personality that caught Piers' fancy irresistibly. Perhaps it was his utter calmness, his unvarying, rock-like strength. Perhaps it was just the good fellowship that looked out of the steady eyes and sounded in every tone of the leisurely voice. Whatever the cause, his presence had made a vast difference to Piers. His boredom had completely vanished. He even forgot to wonder if there were a letter lying waiting for him inside the hotel.

Crowther excused himself at length and rose to take his leave, whereupon Sir Beverley very abruptly, and to his grandson's surprise and gratification, invited him to dine with them that night. Piers at once seconded the invitation, and Crowther without haste or hesitation accepted it.

Then, square and purposeful, he went away.

"A white man!" murmured Piers half to himself.

"One who knows his own mind anyhow," remarked Sir Beverley drily.

He did not ask Piers for the history of their friendship, and Piers, remembering this later, wondered a little at the omission.



CHAPTER XXIII

A FRIEND'S COUNSEL

When Piers went to dress that night he found two letters laid discreetly upon his table, awaiting perusal.

Victor, busily engaged in laying out his clothes, cast a wicked eye back over his shoulder as his young master pounced upon them, then with a shrug resumed his task, smiling to himself the while.

Both letters were addressed in womanly handwriting, but Piers went unerringly to the one he most desired to read. His hands shook a little as he opened it, but he caught sight of his Christian name at the head of it and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Dear Piers,"—so in clear, decided writing the message ran,—"I have wondered many times if I ought to be angry as well as sorry over that letter of yours. It was audacious, wasn't it? Only I know so well that you did not mean to hurt me when you wrote it. But, Piers, what I said before, you compel me to say again. This thing must stop. You say you are not a boy, so I shall not treat you as such. But indeed you must take my word for it when I tell you that I shall never marry again.

"I want to be quite honest with you, so you mustn't think that my two years of married life were by any means idyllic. They were not. The man I married was a failure, but I loved him, and because I loved him I followed him to the world's end. We were engaged two years before we married. My father disapproved; but when he died I was left lonely, so I followed Eric, whom I had not seen for eighteen months, to Australia. We were married in Sydney. He had work at that time in a shipping-office, but he did not manage to keep it. I did not know why at first. I was young, and I had always led a sheltered life. Then one night I found that he had been drinking, and after that I understood—many things. I think I know what you will say of him when you read this. It looks so crude written. But, Piers, he was not a bad man. He had this one fatal weakness, but he loved me, and he was good to me nearly always."

Piers' teeth closed suddenly and fiercely on his lower lip at this point; but he read on grimly with no other sign of indignation.

"Do you remember how I took upon myself once to warn you against losing your self-control?" The handwriting was not quite so steady here; the letters looked hurried, as if some agitation had possessed the writer. "I felt I had to do it, for I had seen a man's life completely wrecked through it. I know he was one of the many that go under every day, but the tragedy was so near me. I have never quite been able to shake off the dreadful memories of it. He was to all outward appearance a strong-willed man, but that habit was stronger, though he fought and fought against it. When he failed, he seemed to lose everything,—self-respect, self-control, strength of purpose,—everything. But when the demon left him, he always repented so bitterly, so bitterly. I had a little money, enough to live on. He used to urge me to leave him, to go back to England, and live in peace. As if I could have done such a thing! And so we struggled on, making a desperately hard fight for it, till one awful night when he came home in raving delirium. I can't describe that to you. I don't want you to know what it was like. I nursed him through it, but it was terrible. He did not always know what he was doing. At times he was violent."

A drop of blood suddenly ran down Piers' chin; he pulled out his handkerchief sharply and wiped it away, still reading on.

"He got over it, but it broke him. He knew—we both knew—that things were hopeless. We tried for a time to shut our eyes to the fact, but it remained. And then one day very suddenly he roused himself and told me that he had heard of a job up-country and was going to it. I could not stop him. I could not even go with him. And so—for the first time since our marriage—we parted. He promised to come back to me for the birth of our child. But before that happened he was dead, killed in a drunken brawl. It was just what I had always feared—the tragedy that overhung us from the beginning. Piers, that's all. I've told it very badly. But I felt you must know how my romance died; and how impossible it is that I should ever have another. It didn't break my heart. It wasn't sudden enough for that. And now that he is gone, I can see it is best. But the manner of his going—that was the dreadful part. I told you about my baby girl, how she was born blind, and how five years ago she died.

"So now you know my little tragic history from beginning to end. There is no accounting for love. We follow our instincts, I suppose. But it leads us sometimes along paths that we could never bear to travel twice. Is there any pain, I wonder, like the pain of disillusionment, of seeing the beloved idol lying in the dust? This is a selfish point of view, I know; but I want you to realize that you have made a mistake. Dear Piers, I am very, very sorry it has happened. No, not angry at all; somehow I can't be angry. It's such a difficult world to live in, and there are so many influences at work. But you must forget this wish of yours indeed—indeed. I am too old, too experienced, too worldly-wise, too prosaic for you in every way. You must marry a girl who has never loved before. You must have the first and best of a woman's heart. You must have 'The True Romance.'

"That, Piers, will always be the wish and prayer of

"Your loving friend,

"AVERY."

Piers' hands were steady enough now. There was something slow and fatalistic in the way they folded the letter. He looked up from it at length with dark eyes that gazed unwaveringly before him, as though they saw a vision.

"You will be late, Monsieur Pierre," suggested Victor softly at his elbow.

"What?" Piers turned those dreaming eyes upon him, and suddenly he laughed and stretched his arms wide as one awaking. The steadfast look went out of his eyes; they danced with gaiety. "Hullo, you old joker! Well, let's dress then and be quick about it!"

During the process it flashed upon Piers that all mention of Tudor had been avoided in the letter he had just read. He frowned momentarily at the thought. Had she deliberately avoided the subject? And if so—but on the instant his brow cleared again. No, she had written too frankly for that. She had not mentioned the matter simply because she regarded it as unimportant. The great question lay between herself and him alone. Of that he was wholly certain. He smiled again at the thought. No, he was not afraid of Tudor.

"Monsieur is well pleased," murmured Victor, with a flash of his round black eyes.

"Quite well pleased, mon vieux!" laughed back Piers

"C'est bien!" said Victor, regarding him with the indulgent smile that he had bestowed upon him in babyhood. "And Monsieur does not want his other letter? But no—no!"

His voice was openly quizzical; he dodged a laughing backhander from Piers with a neat gesture of apology. It had not escaped his notice that the letter Piers had read had disappeared unobtrusively into an inner pocket.

"Who's the other letter from?" said Piers, glancing at it perfunctorily. "Oh, I know. No one of importance. She'll keep till after dinner."

Ina Rose would not have felt flattered had she heard the statement. The fan Piers had promised to send her had duly arrived from Paris with a brief—very brief—note from him, requesting her acceptance of it. She had written in reply a letter which she had been at some pains to compose, graciously accepting the gift and suggesting that an account of any adventures that befell him would be received by her with interest. She added that, a spell of frost having put an end to the hunting, life at Wardenhurst had become extremely flat, and she had begun to envy Piers in his exile. Her father was talking of going to Mentone for a few weeks, and wanted her to accompany him. But she was not sure that she would care for it. What did Piers think?

When Piers did eventually read the letter, he smiled at this point,—a smile that was not altogether good to see. He was just going out to the Casino with Crowther. The latter had gone to fetch a coat, and he had occupied the few moments of waiting with Ina's letter.

He was still smiling over the open page when Crowther joined him; but he folded the letter at once, and they went out together.

"Have you had any luck at the tables?" Crowther asked.

"None," said Piers. "At least I won, eventually, but Fate, in the form of a powdered and bedizened female snatched the proceeds before I got the chance. A bad omen, what?"

"I hope not," said Crowther.

There was a touch of savagery in Piers' laugh. "It won't happen again, anyhow," he said.

They entered the Casino with its brilliant rooms and pushing crowds. The place was thronged. As they entered, a woman with a face of evil beauty, pressed close to Piers and spoke a word or two in French. But he looked at her and through her with royal disdain, and so passed her by.

They made their way to the table at which Piers had tried his luck the previous night, waited for and finally secured a place.

"You take it!" said Crowther. "I believe in your luck."

Piers laughed. He staked five francs on the figure five and lost, doubled his stakes and lost again, trebled them and lost again.

"This is getting serious," said Crowther.

But still Piers laughed. "Damn it!" he said. "I will win to-night!"

"Try another figure!" said Crowther.

But Piers refused. He laid down twenty-five francs, and with that he won. It was the turning-point. From that moment it seemed he could not do wrong. Stake after stake he won, either with his own money, or Crowther's; and finally left the table in triumph with full pockets.

A good many watched him enviously as he went. He refused to try his luck elsewhere, but went arrogantly away with his hand through Crowther's arm.

"He'll come back to-morrow," observed a shrewd American. "And the next day, and the next. He's just the sort that helps to keep this establishment going. They'll pick him clean."

But he was wrong. Though elated by victory, Piers was not drawn by the gambling vice. The thing amused him, but it did not greatly attract. He was by no means dazzled by the spoils he carried away.

They went out to the gardens, and called for liqueurs. The woman who had spoken to Piers yet hovered about the doors. She cursed him through her painted lips as he passed, but he went by her like a prince, haughtily aloof, contemptuously regardless.

They sat down in a comparatively quiet corner, whence they could watch the ever-shifting picture without being disturbed. A very peculiar mood possessed Piers. He was restless and uneasy in spite of his high spirits. For no definite reason he wanted to keep on the move. In deference to Crowther's wish, he controlled the desire, but it was an obvious effort.

He seemed to find difficulty also in attending to Crowther's quiet remarks, and after a while Crowther ceased to make them. He finished his liqueur and sat smoking with his eyes on the dark, sensitive face that watched the passing crowd so indifferently, yet so persistently.

Piers noticed his silence at last, and looked at him enquiringly. "Shall we go?"

Crowther leaned slowly towards him. The place was public, but their privacy was complete.

"Piers," he said, "may I take the privilege of an old friend?"

"You may take anything you like so far as I am concerned," said Piers impetuously.

Crowther smiled a little. "Thank you. Then I will go ahead. Are you engaged to be married?"

"What?" said Piers. He looked momentarily startled; then laughed across the table with a freedom that was wholly unaffected. "Am I engaged, did you say? No, I'm not. But I'm going to be married for all that."

"Ah!" said Crowther. "I thought I knew the signs."

He rose with the words, and instantly Piers sprang up also. "Yes, let's go! I can't breathe here. Come down to the shore for a breath of air, and I'll tell you all about it!"

He linked his arm again in Crowther's, obviously glad to be gone; but when they had left the glittering place behind them, he still talked inconsequently about a thousand things till in his calm fashion Crowther turned him back.

"I don't want you to tell me anything personal," he said, "save one thing. This girl whom you hope to marry—I gather you are pretty sure of her?"

Piers threw back his head with a gesture that defied the world. "I am quite sure of her," he said; and a moment later, with impulsive confidence: "She has just taken the trouble to write at length and tell me why she can't have me."

"Ah?" Crowther's tone held curiosity as well as kindly sympathy. "A sound reason?"

"No reason at all," flung back Piers, still with his face to the stars. "She knows that as well as I do. I tell you, Crowther, I know the way to that woman's heart, and I could find it blindfold. She is mine already."

"And doesn't know it?" suggested Crowther.

"Yes, she does in her heart of hearts,—or soon will. I shall send her a post-card to-morrow and sum up the situation."

"On a post-card?"

Crowther sounded puzzled, and Piers broke into a laugh and descended to earth.

"Yes, in one expressive word—'Rats!' No one else will understand it, but she will."

"A little abrupt!" commented Crowther.

"Yes, I'm going to be abrupt now," said Piers with imperial confidence. "I'm going to storm the position."

"And you are sure you will carry it?"

"Quite sure." Piers' voice held not the faintest shade of doubt.

"I hope you will, lad," said Crowther kindly. "And—that being the case—may I say what I set out to say?"

"Oh, go ahead!" said Piers.

"It's only this," said Crowther, in his slow, quiet way. "Only a word of advice, sonny, which I shouldn't give if I didn't know that your life's happiness hangs on your taking it. You're young, but there's a locked door in your past. Open that door just once before you marry the woman you love, and show her what is behind it! It'll give her a shock maybe. But it'll be better for you both in the end. Don't let there be any locked doors between you and your wife! You're too young for that. And if she's the right sort, it won't make a pin's difference to her love. Women are like that, thank God!"

He spoke with the utmost earnestness. He was evidently keenly anxious to gain his point. But his words went into utter silence. Ere they were fully spoken Piers' hand was withdrawn from his arm. His careless, swinging stride became a heavy, slackening tramp, and at last he halted altogether. They stood side by side in silence with their faces to the moon-silvered water. And there fell a long, long pause, as though the whole world stopped and listened.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE PROMISE

After all, it was Crowther who broke that tragic silence; perhaps because he could bear it no longer. The path on which they stood was deserted. He laid a very steady hand upon Piers' shoulder with a compassionate glance at the stony young face which a few minutes before had been so full of abounding life.

"It comes hard to you, eh, lad?" he said.

Piers stirred, almost made as if he would toss the friendly hand away; but in the end he suffered it, though he would not meet Crowther's eyes.

"You owe it to her," urged Crowther gently. "Tell her, lad! She's bound to be up against it sooner or later if you don't."

"Yes," Piers said. "I know."

He spoke heavily; all the youth seemed to have gone out of him. After a moment, as Crowther waited he turned with a gesture of hopelessness and faced him. "I'm like a dog on a chain," he said. "I drag this way and that, and eat my heart out for freedom. But it's all no use. I've got to live and die on it." He clenched his hands in sudden passionate rebellion. "But I'm damned if I'm going to tell anybody! It's hell enough without that!"

Crowther's hand closed slowly and very steadily on his shoulder. "It's just hell that I want to save you from, sonny," he said. "It may seem the hardest part to you now, but if you shirk it you'll go further in still. I know very well what I'm saying. And it's just because you're man enough to feel this thing and not a brute beast to forget it, that it's hurt you so infernally all these years. But it'll hurt you worse, lad, it'll wring your very soul, if you keep it a secret between you and the woman you love. It's a big temptation, but—if I know you—you're going to stand up to it. She'll think the better of you for it in the end. But it'll be a shadow over both your lives if you don't. And there are some things that even a woman might find it hard to forgive."

He stopped. Piers' eyes were hard and fixed. He scarcely looked as if he heard. From below them there arose the murmur of the moonlit sea. Close at hand the trees in a garden stirred mysteriously as though they moved in their sleep. But Piers made neither sound nor movement. He stood like an image of stone.

Again the silence began to lengthen intolerably, to stretch out into a desert of emptiness, to become fateful with a bitterness too poignant to be uttered. Crowther said no more. He had had his say. He waited with unswerving patience for the result.

Piers spoke at last, and there was a queer note of humour in his voice,—humour that was tragic. "So I've got to go back again, have I? Back to my valley of dry bones! There's no climbing the heights for me, Crowther, never will be. Somehow or other, I am always tumbled back."

"You're wrong," Crowther said, with quiet decision. "It's the only way out. Take it like a man, and you'll win through! Shirk it and—well, sonny, no shirker ever yet got anything worth having out of life. You know that as well as I do."

Piers straightened himself with a brief laugh. "Yes, I know that much. But—I sometimes ask myself if I'm any better than a shirker. Life is such a beastly farce so far as I am concerned. I never do anything. There's never anything to do."

"Oh, rats!" said Crowther, and smiled. "There are not many fellows who do half as much. If to-day is a fair sample of your life, I'm damned if it's an easy one."

"I'm used to it," said Piers quickly. "You know, I'm awfully fond of my grandfather—always have been. We suit each other marvellously well—in some ways." He paused a moment, then, with an effort, "I never told him either, Crowther. I never told a soul."

"No," Crowther said. "I don't see any reason that you should. But the woman you marry—she is different. If you take her into your inner life at all, she is bound to come upon it sooner or later. You must see it, lad. You know it in your heart."

"And you think she will marry me when she knows I'm a—murderer?" Piers uttered the word through clenched teeth. He had the haggard look of a man who has endured long suffering.

There was deep compassion in Crowther's eyes as he watched him. "I don't think—being a woman—she will put it in that way," he said, "not, that is, if she loves you."

"How else could she put it?" demanded Piers harshly. "Is there any other way of putting it? I killed the man intentionally. I told you so at the time. The fellow who taught me the trick warned me that it would almost certainly be fatal to a heavy man taken unawares. Why, he himself is now doing five years' penal servitude for the very same thing. Oh, I'm not a humbug, Crowther. I bolted from the consequences. You made me bolt. But I've often wished to heaven since that I'd stayed and faced it out. It would have been easier in the end, God knows."

"My dear fellow," Crowther said, "you will never convince me of that as long as you live. There was nothing to gain by your staying and all to lose. Consequences there were bound to be—and always are. But there was no good purpose to be served by wrecking your life. You were only a boy, and the luck was against you. I couldn't have stood by and seen you dragged under."

Piers groaned. "I sometimes wish I was dead!" he said.

"My dear chap, what's the good of that?" Crowther slipped his hand from his shoulder to his arm, and drew him quietly forward. "You've suffered infernally, but it's made a man of you. Don't forget that! It's the Sculptor and the Clay, lad. He knows how best to fashion a good thing. It isn't for the clay to cry out."

"Is that your point of view?" Piers spoke with reckless bitterness. "It isn't mine."

"You'll come to it," said Crowther gently.

They walked on for a space in silence, till turning they began to ascend the winding path that led up to the hotel,—the path which Piers had watched Crowther ascend that morning.

Side by side they mounted, till half-way up Crowther checked their progress. "Piers," he said, "I'm grateful to you for enduring my interference in this matter."

"Pshaw!" said Piers, "I owe you that much anyhow."

"You owe me nothing," said Crowther emphatically. "What I did for you, I did for myself. I've rather a weakness—it's a very ordinary one too—for trying to manage other people's concerns. And there's something so fine about you that I can't bear to stand aside and see you mess up your own. So, sonny,—for my satisfaction,—will you promise me not to take a wrong turning over this?"

He spoke very earnestly, with a pleading that could not give offence. Piers' face softened almost in spite of him. "You're an awfully good chap," he said.

"Promise me, lad!" pleaded Crowther, still holding his arm in a friendly grasp; then as Piers hesitated: "You know, I'm an older man than you are. I can see further. You'll be making your own hell if you don't."

"But why should I promise?" said Piers uneasily.

"Because I know you will keep a promise—even against your own judgment." Simply, with absolute conviction, Crowther made reply. "I shan't feel happy about you—unless you promise."

Piers smiled a little, but the lines about his mouth were grim. "Oh, all right," he said, after a moment, "I promise;—for I think you are right, Crowther. I think too that I should probably have to tell her—whether I wanted to or not. She's that sort—the sort that none but a skunk could deceive. But—" his voice altered suddenly; he turned brooding eyes upon the sleeping sea—"I wonder if she will forgive me," he said. "I—wonder."

"Does she love you?" said Crowther.

Piers' eyes flashed round at him. "I can make her love me," he said.

"You are sure?"

"I am sure."

"Then, my son, she'll forgive you. And if you want to play a straight game, tell her soon!" said Crowther.

And Piers, with all the light gone out of his eyes, answered soberly, "I will."



CHAPTER XXV

DROSS

In the morning they hired horses and went towards the mountains. The day was cloudless, but Sir Beverley would not be persuaded to accompany them.

"I'm not in the mood for exertion," he said to Piers. "Besides, I detest hired animals, always did. I shall spend an intellectual morning listening to the band."

"Hope you won't be bored, sir," said Piers.

"Your going or coming wouldn't affect that one way or another," responded Sir Beverley.

Whereat Piers laughed and went his way.

He was curiously light-hearted again that morning. The soft Southern air with its many perfumes exhilarated him like wine. The scent of the orange-groves rose as incense to the sun.

The animal he rode danced a skittish side-step from time to time. It was impossible to go with sober mien.

"It's a good land," said Crowther.

"Flowing with milk and honey," laughed Piers, with his eyes on the olive-clothed slopes. "But there's no country like one's own, what?"

"No country like England, you mean," said Crowther.

"Of course I do, but I was too polite to say so."

"You needn't be polite to me," said Crowther with his slow smile. "And England happens to be my country. I am as British—" he glanced at Piers' dark face—"perhaps even a little more so—than you are."

"I plead guilty to an Italian grandmother," said Piers. "But you—I thought you were Colonial."

"I am British born and bred," said Crowther.

"You?" Piers looked at him in surprise. "You don't belong to Australia then?"

"Only by adoption. I was the son of an English parson. I was destined for the Church myself for the first twenty years of my life." Crowther was still smiling, but his eyes had left Piers; they scanned the horizon contemplatively.

"Great Scott!" said Piers. "Lucky escape for you, what?"

"I didn't think so at the time," Crowther spoke thoughtfully, sitting motionless in his saddle and gazing straight before him. "You see, I was keen on the religious life. I was narrow in my views—I was astonishingly narrow; but I was keen."

"Ye gods!" said Piers.

He looked at the square, strong figure incredulously. Somehow he could not associate Crowther with any but a vigorous, outdoor existence.

"You would never have stuck to it," he said, after a moment. "You'd have loathed the life."

"I don't think so," said Crowther, in his deliberate way, "though I admit I probably shouldn't have expanded much. It wasn't easy to give it up at the time."

"What made you do it?" asked Piers.

"Necessity. When my father died, my mother was left with a large family and quite destitute. I was the eldest, and a sheep-farming uncle—a brother of hers—offered me a wage sufficient to keep her going if I would give up the Church and join him. I was already studying. I could have pushed through on my own; but I couldn't have supported her. So I had to go. That was the beginning of my Colonial life. It was five-and-twenty years ago, and I've never been Home since."

He turned his horse quietly round to continue the ascent. The road was steep. They went slowly side by side.

Crowther went on in a grave, detached way, as though he were telling the story of another man's life. "I kicked hard at going, but I've lived to be thankful that I went. I had to rough it, and it did me good. It was just that I wanted. There's never much fun for a stranger in a strange land, sonny, and it took me some time to shake down. In fact just for a while I thought I couldn't stand it. The loneliness out there on those acres and acres of grass-land was so awful; for I was city-bred. I'd never been in the desert, never been out of the sound of church-bells." He began to smile again. "I'd even got a sort of feeling that God wasn't to be found outside civilization," he said. "I think we get ultra-civilized in our ideas sometimes. And the emptiness was almost overpowering. It was like being shut down behind bars of iron with occasional glimpses of hell to enliven the monotony. That was when one went to the townships, and saw life. They didn't tempt me at first. I was too narrow even for that. But the loneliness went on eating and eating into me till I got so desperate in the end I was ready to snatch at any diversion." He paused a moment, and into his steady eyes there came a shadow that made them very human. "I went to hell," he said. "I waded up to the neck in mire. I gave myself up to it body and soul. I wallowed. And all the while it revolted me, though it was so sickeningly easy and attractive. I loathed myself, but I went on with it. It seemed anyhow one degree better than that awful homesickness. And then one day, right in the middle of it all, I had a sort of dream. Or perhaps it wasn't any more a dream than Jacob had in the desert. But I felt as if I'd been called, and I just had to get up and go. I expect most people know the sensation, for after all the Kingdom of Heaven is within us; but it made a bigger impression on me at the time than anything in my experience. So I went back into the wilderness and waited. Old chap, I didn't wait in vain."

He suddenly turned his head, and his eyes rested upon Piers with the serenity of a man at peace with his own soul. "That's about all my story," he said with simplicity. "I got the strength for the job, and so carried it through. When my uncle died, I was left in command, and I've stuck to it ever since. But I took a partner a few years back, and now I've handed over the whole thing to him and I'm going Home at last to my old mother."

"Going to settle in England?" asked Piers.

Crowther shook his head. "Not now, lad. I couldn't. There's too much to be done. No; I'm going to fulfil my old ambitions if I can. I'm going to get myself ordained. After that—"

He paused, for Piers had turned to stare at him in open amazement. "You!" he ejaculated.

Crowther's smile came over his face like a spreading light. "You don't think much of parsons, I gather, sonny," he said.

Piers broke into his sudden laugh. "Not as a tribe, I admit. I can't stand any man who makes an ass of himself, whatever his profession. But of course I don't mean to assert that all parsons answer to that description. I've met a few I liked."

Crowther's smile developed into a laugh. "Then you, won't deprive me of the pleasure of your friendship if I become one?"

"My dear chap," said Piers forcibly, "if you became the biggest blackguard in creation, you would remain my friend."

It was regally spoken, but the speaker was plainly so unconscious of arrogance that Crowther's hand came out to him and lay for a moment on his arm. "I gathered that, sonny," he said gently.

Piers' eyes flashed sympathy. "And what are you going to do then? You say you're not going to settle in England?"

"I am not," said Crowther, and again he was looking out ahead of him with eyes that spanned the far distance. "No; I'm going back again to the old haunts. There's a thundering lot to do there. It's more than a one-man job. But, please God, I'll do what I can. I know I can do a little. It's a hell of a place, sonny. You saw the outside edge of it yourself."

Piers nodded without speaking. It had been in a sense his baptism of fire.

"It's the new chums I want to get hold of," Crowther said. "They get drawn in so devilishly easily. They're like children, many of 'em, trying to walk on quicksands. They're bound to go in, bound to go under, and a big percentage never come up again. It's the children I want to help. I hate to think of fresh, clean lives being thrown on to the dust-heap. It's so futile,—such a crying waste."

"If anyone can do it, you can," said Piers.

"Ah! I wonder. It won't be easy, but I know their temptations so awfully well. I've seen scores go under, I've been under myself. And that makes a lot of difference."

"Life is infernally difficult for most of us," said Piers.

They rode in silence for awhile, and then he changed the subject.

It was not till they returned that Crowther announced his intention of leaving on the following day.

"I've no time for slacking," he said. "I didn't come Home to slack. And there's the mother waiting for me."

"Oh, man," Piers said suddenly, "how I wish I had a mother!"

And then half-ashamed, he turned and went in search of his grandfather.

Again that evening Crowther accepted Sir Beverley's invitation to dine at their table. The old man seemed to regard Piers' friend with a kind of suspicious interest. He asked few questions but he watched him narrowly.

"If you and the boy want to go to the Casino again, don't mind me!" he said, at the end of dinner.

"We don't, sir," said Piers promptly. "Can't we sit out on the terrace all together and smoke?"

"I don't go beyond the lounge," said Sir Beverley, with decision.

"All right, we'll sit in the lounge," said Piers.

His grandfather frowned at him. "Don't be a fool, Piers! Can't you see you're not wanted?" He thrust out an abrupt hand to Crowther. "Good-night to you! I shall probably retire before you come in."

"He is leaving first thing in the morning," said Piers.

Sir Beverley's frown was transferred to Crowther. He looked at him piercingly. "Leaving, are you? Going to England, eh? I suppose we shall meet again then?"

"I hope so," said Crowther.

Sir Beverley grunted. "Do you? Well, we shan't be moving yet. But—if you care to look us up at Rodding Abbey when we do get back—you can; eh, Piers?"

"I tell him, he must, sir," said Piers.

"You are very kind," said Crowther. "Good-bye sir! And thank you!"

He and Piers went out together, and walked to and fro in the garden above the sea. The orchestra played fitfully in the hotel behind them, and now and then there came the sounds of careless voices and wandering feet. They themselves talked but little. Piers was in a dreamy mood, and his companion was plainly deep in thought.

He spoke at length out of a long silence. "Did your grandfather say Rodding Abbey just now?"

"Yes," said Piers, waking up.

"It's near a place called Wardenhurst?" pursued Crowther.

"Yes," said Piers again. "Ever been there?"

"No," Crowther spoke slowly, as though considering his words. "Someone I know lives there, that's all."

"Someone you know?" Piers stood still. He looked at Crowther sharply through the dimness.

"I don't suppose you have ever met her, lad," said Crowther quietly. "From what I know of society in the old country you wouldn't move in the same circle. But as I have promised myself to visit her, it seems better to mention the fact."

"Why shouldn't you mention it? What is her name?" Piers spoke quickly, in the imperious fashion habitual to him when not quite at his ease.

Crowther hesitated. He seemed to be debating some point with himself.

At length, "Her name," he said slowly, "is Denys."

Piers made a sudden movement that passed unexplained. There fell a few moments of silence. Then, in a voice even more measured than Crowther's, he spoke.

"As it happens, I have met her. Tell me what you know about her,—if you don't mind."

Again Crowther hesitated.

"Go on," said Piers.

They were facing one another in the darkness. The end of Piers' cigar had ceased to glow. He did not seem to be breathing. But in the tense moments that followed his words there came to Crowther the hard, quick beating of his heart like the thud of a racing engine far away.

Instinctively he put out a hand. "Piers, old chap,—" he said.

"Go on!" Piers said again.

He gripped both hand and wrist with nervous fingers, holding them almost as though he would force from him the information he desired.

Crowther waited no longer, for he knew in that moment that he stood in the presence of a soul in torment. "You'll have to know it," he said, "though why these things happen, God alone knows. Sonny, she is the widow of the man whose death you caused."

The words were spoken, and after them came silence—such a silence as could be felt. Once the hands that gripped Crowther's seemed about to slacken, and then in a moment they tightened again as the hands of a drowning man clinging to a spar.

Crowther attempted nothing in the way of sympathy or consolation. He merely stood ready. But it was evident that he did not need to be told of the tragedy that had suddenly fallen upon Piers' life. His attitude said as much.

Very, very slowly at last, as if not wholly sure of his balance, Piers let him go. He took out his cigar with a mechanical movement and looked at it; then abruptly returned it to his lips and drew it fiercely back to life.

Then, through a cloud of smoke, he spoke. "Crowther, I made you a promise yesterday."

"You did," said Crowther gravely.

Piers threw him a quick look. "Oh, you needn't be afraid," he said. "I'm not going to cry off. It's not my way. But—I want you to make me a promise in return."

"What is it, sonny?" There was just a hint of anxiety in Crowther's tone.

Piers made a reckless, half-defiant movement of the head. "It is that you will never—whatever the circumstances—speak of this thing again to anyone—not even to me."

"You think it necessary to ask that of me?" said Crowther.

"No, I don't!" Impulsively Piers made answer. "I believe I'm a cur to ask it. But this thing has dogged me so persistently that I feel like an animal being run to earth. For my peace of mind, Crowther;—because I'm a coward if you like—give me your word on it!"

He laid a hand not wholly steady upon Crowther's shoulder, and impelled him forward. His voice was low and agitated.

"Forgive me, old chap!" he urged. "And understand, if you can. It's all you can do to help."

"My dear lad, of course I do!" Instant and reassuring came Crowther's reply. "If you want my promise, you have it. The business is yours, not mine. I shall never interfere."

"Thank you—thanks awfully!" Piers said.

He drew a great breath. His hand went through Crowther's arm.

"That gives me time to think," he said. "What an infernal tangle this beastly world is! I suppose you think there's a reason for everything?"

"You've heard of gold being tried in the fire," said Crowther.

Piers broke into his sudden laugh. "I'm not gold, my dear chap, but the tinniest dross that ever was made. Shall we go and have a drink, what? This sort of thing always makes me thirsty."

It was characteristically abrupt. It ended the matter in a trice. They went together to the hotel buffet, and there Piers quenched his thirst. It was while there that Crowther became aware that his mood had wholly changed. He laughed and joked with the bright-eyed French girl who waited upon them, and seemed loth to depart. Silently, but with a growing anxiety, Crowther watched him. There was certainly nothing forced about his gaiety. It was wildly, recklessly spontaneous; but there was about it a fevered quality that set Crowther almost instinctively on his guard. He did not know, and he had no means of gauging, exactly how deeply the iron had pierced. But that some sort of wound had been inflicted he could not doubt. It might be merely a superficial one, but he feared that it was something more than that. There was a queer, intangible species of mockery in Piers' attitude, as though he set the whole world at defiance.

And yet he did not look like a man who had been stunned by an unexpected, sledge-hammer blow of Fate. He was keenly, fiercely alive to his surroundings. He seemed to be gibing rather at a blow that had glanced aside. Uneasily Crowther wondered.

It was he who finally suggested a move. It was growing late.

"So it is!" said Piers. "You ought to be turning in if you really mean to make an early start."

He stood still in the hall and held out his hand. "Good-night, old chap! I'm not going up at present."

"You'd better," said Crowther.

"No, I can't. I couldn't possibly turn in yet." He thrust his hand upon Crowther. "Good-night! I shall see you in the morning."

Crowther took the hand. The hall was deserted. They stood together under a swinging lamp, and by its flaring light Crowther sought to read his companion's face.

For a moment or two Piers refused to meet his look, then with sudden stubbornness he raised his eyes and stared back. They shone as black and hard as ebony.

"Good-night!" he said again.

Crowther's level brows were slightly drawn. His hand, square and strong, closed upon Piers' and held it.

For a few seconds he did not speak; then: "I don't know that I feel like turning in yet either, sonny," he said deliberately.

Piers made a swift movement of impatience. His eyes seemed to grow brighter, more grimly hard.

"I'm afraid I must ask you to excuse me in any case," he said. "I'm going up to see if my grandfather has all he wants."

It was defiantly spoken. He turned with the words, almost wresting his hand free, and strode away towards the lift.

Reaching it, some sense of compunction seemed to touch him for he looked back over his shoulder with an abrupt gesture of farewell.

Crowther made no answering sign. He stood gravely watching. But, as the lift shot upwards, he turned aside and began squarely to ascend the stairs.

When Piers came out of his room ten minutes later with a coat over his arm he came face to face with him in the corridor. There was a certain grimness apparent about Crowther also by that time. He offered no explanation of his presence, although quite obviously he was waiting.

Piers stood still. There was a dangerous glitter in his eyes that came and went. "Look here, Crowther!" he said. "It's no manner of use your attempting this game with me. I'm going out, and—whether you like it or not, I don't care a damn—I'm going alone."

"Where are you going?" said Crowther.

"To the Casino," Piers flung the words with a gleam of clenched teeth.

Crowther looked at him straight and hard. "What for?" he asked.

"What do people generally go for?" Piers prepared to move on as he uttered the question.

But Crowther deliberately blocked his way. "No, Piers," he said quietly. "You're not going to-night."

The blood rose in a great wave to Piers' forehead. His eyes shone suddenly red. "Do you think you're going to stop me?" he said.

"For to-night, sonny—yes." Quite decidedly Crowther made reply. "To-morrow you will be your own master. But to-night—well, you've had a bit of a knock out; you're off your balance. Don't go to-night!"

He spoke with earnest appeal, but he still blocked the passage squarely, stoutly, immovably.

The hot flush died out of Piers' face; he went slowly white. But the blaze of wrath in his eyes leaped higher. For the moment he looked scarcely sane.

"If you don't clear out of my path, I shall throw you!" he said, speaking very quietly, but with a terrible distinctness that made misunderstanding impossible.

Crowther, level-browed and determined, remained where he was. "I don't think you will," he said.

"Don't you?" A faint smile of derision twisted Piers' lips. He gathered up the coat he carried, and threw it across his shoulder.

Crowther watched him with eyes that never varied. "Piers!" he said.

"Well?" Piers looked at him, still with that slight, grim smile.

Crowther stood like a rock. "I will let you pass, sonny, if you can tell me—on your word of honour as a gentleman—that the tables are all you have in your mind."

Piers tossed back his head with the action of an angry beast. "What the devil has that to do with you?"

"Everything," said Crowther.

He moved at last, quietly, massively, and took Piers by the shoulders. "My son," he said, "I know where you are going. I've been there myself. But in God's name, lad, don't—don't go! There are some stains that never come out though one would give all one had to be rid of them."

"Let me go!" said Piers.

He was breathing quickly; his eyes gazed fiercely into the elder man's face. He made no violent movement, but his whole body was tensely strung to resist.

Crowther's hands tightened upon him. "Not to-night!" he said.

"Yes, now!" Something of electricity ran through Piers; there came as it were the ripple of muscles contracting for a spring. Yet still he stood motionless, menacing but inactive.

"I will not!" Sudden and hard Crowther's answer came; his hold became a grip. By sheer unexpectedness of action, he forced Piers back against the door behind him.

It gave inwards, and they stumbled into the darkness of the bedroom.

"You fool!" said Piers. "You fool!"

Yet he gave ground, scarcely resisting, and coming up against the bed sat down upon it suddenly as if spent.

There fell a brief silence, a tense, hard-breathing pause. Then Piers reached up and freed himself.

"Oh, go away, Crowther!" he said. "You're a kind old ass, but I don't want you. And you needn't spend the night in the corridor either. See? Just go to bed like a Christian and let me do the same!"

The struggle was over; so suddenly, so amazingly, that Crowther stood dumbfounded. He had girded himself to wrestle with a giant, but there was nothing formidable about the boy who sat on the edge of his bed and laughed at him with easy ridicule.

"Why don't you switch on the light," he jeered, "and have a good look round for the devil? He was here a minute ago. What? Don't you believe in devils? That's heresy. All good parsons—" He got up suddenly and went to the switch. In a second the room was flooded with light. He returned to Crowther with the full flare on his face, and the only expression it wore was one of careless friendliness. He held out his hand. "Good-night, dear old fellow! Say your prayers and go to bed! And you needn't have any more nightmares on my account. I'm going to turn in myself directly."

There was no mistaking his sincerity, or the completeness of his surrender. Crowther could but take the extended hand, and, in silent astonishment, treat the incident as closed.

He even wondered as he went away if he had not possibly exaggerated the whole matter, though at the heart of him he knew that this was only what Piers himself desired him to believe. He could not but feel convinced, however, that the danger was past for the time at least. In his own inimitable fashion Piers had succeeded in reassuring him. He was fully satisfied that the boy would keep his word, for his faith in him was absolute. But he felt the victory that was his to be a baffling one. He had conquered merely because Piers of his own volition had ceased to resist. He did not understand that sudden submission. Like Sir Beverley, he was puzzled by it. There was about it a mysterious quality that eluded his understanding. He would have given a good deal for a glimpse of the motive that lay behind.

But he had to go without it. Piers was in no expansive mood. Perhaps he might have found it difficult to explain himself even had he so desired.

Whatever the motive that had urged him, it urged him no longer, or it had been diverted into a side-channel. For almost as soon as he was alone, he threw himself down and scribbled a careless line to Ina Rose, advising her to accompany her father to Mentone, and adding that he believed she would not be bored there.

When he had despatched Victor with the letter, he flung his window wide and leaned out of it with his eyes wide opened on the darkness, and on his lips that smile that was not good to see.



CHAPTER XXVI

SUBSTANCE

It was a blustering spring day, and Avery, caught in a sudden storm of driving sleet, stood up against the railings of the doctor's house, sheltering as best she might. She was holding her umbrella well in the teeth of the gale, and trying to protect an armful of purchases as well.

She was alone, Gracie, the black sheep, having been sent to school at the close of the Christmas holidays, and Jeanie being confined to the house with a severe cold. Olive, having become more and more her father's constant companion, disdained shopping expeditions. The two elder boys and Pat were all at a neighbouring school as weekly boarders, and though she missed them Avery had it not in her heart to regret the arrangement. The Vicarage might at times seem dreary, but it had become undeniably an abode of peace.

Mrs. Lorimer was gradually recovering her strength, and Avery's care now centred more upon Jeanie than her mother. Though the child had recovered from her accident, she had not been really well all the winter, and the cold spring seemed to tax her strength to the uttermost. Tudor still dropped in at intervals, but he said little, and his manner did not encourage Avery to question him. Privately she was growing anxious about Jeanie, and she wished that he would be more communicative. He had absolutely forbidden book-work, a fiat to which Mr. Lorimer had yielded under protest.

"The child will grow up a positive dunce," he had declared.

To which Tudor had brusquely rejoined, "What of it?"

But his word was law so far as Jeanie was concerned, and Mr. Lorimer had relinquished the point with the sigh of one submitting to the inevitable. He did not like Lennox Tudor, but for some reason he always avoided an open disagreement with him.

It was of Jeanie that Avery was thinking as she stood there huddled against the railings while the sleet beat a fierce tattoo on her levelled umbrella and streamed from it in rivers on to the ground. She even debated with herself if it seemed advisable to turn and enter the doctor's dwelling, and try to get him to speak frankly of the matter as he had spoken once before.

She dismissed the idea, however, reflecting that he would most probably be out, and she was on the point of collecting her forces to make a rush for another sheltered spot further on when the front door opened unexpectedly behind her, and Tudor himself came forth bareheaded into the rain.

"What are you doing there, Mrs. Denys?" he said. "Why don't you come inside?"

He opened the gate for her, and took her parcels without waiting for a reply. And Avery, still with her umbrella poised against the blast, smiled her thanks and passed in.

The hair grew far back on Tudor's forehead, it was in fact becoming scanty on the top of his head; and the raindrops glistened upon it as he entered behind Avery. He wiped them away, and then took off his glasses and wiped them also.

"Come into the dining-room!" he said. "You are just in time to join me at tea."

"You're very kind," Avery said. "But I ought to hurry back the moment the rain lessens."

"It won't lessen yet," said Tudor. "Take off your mackintosh, won't you? I expect your feet are wet. There's a fire to dry them by."

Certainly the storm showed no signs of abating. The sky was growing darker every instant. Avery slipped the streaming mackintosh from her shoulders and entered the room into which he had invited her.

The blaze on the hearth was cheering after the icy gale without. She went to it, stretching her numbed hands to the warmth.

Tudor pushed forward a chair. "I believe you are chilled to the bone," he said.

She laughed at that. "Oh no, indeed I am not! But it is a cold wind, isn't it? Have you finished your work for to-day?"

Tudor foraged in a cupboard for an extra cup and saucer. "No. I've got to go out again later. I've just come back from Miss Whalley's. She's got a touch of jaundice."

"Oh, poor thing!" said Avery.

"Yes; poor thing!" echoed Tudor grimly. "She is very sorry for herself, I can assure you; but as full of gossip as ever." He paused.

Avery, with her face to the fire, laughed a little. "Anything new?"

"Miss Whalley," said Tudor deliberately, "always gets hold of something new. Never noticed that?"

"Wouldn't you like me to pour out?" suggested Avery.

"No. You keep your feet on the fender. Do you want to hear the latest tittle-tattle—or not?"

There was a wary gleam behind Tudor's glasses; but Avery did not turn her eyes from the fire. A curious little feeling of uneasiness possessed her, a sensation that scarcely amounted to dread yet which quickened the beating of her heart in a fashion that she found vaguely disconcerting.

"Don't tell me anything ugly!" she said gently, still not looking at him.

Tudor uttered a short laugh. "There's nothing especially venomous about it that I can see." He lifted the teapot and began to pour. "Have you heard from young Evesham lately?"

The question was casually uttered; but Avery's hands made a slight involuntary movement over the fire towards which she leaned.

"No," she said.

At the same moment the cup that Tudor was filling overflowed, and he whispered something under his breath and set down the tea-pot.

Avery turned towards him instinctively, to see him dabbing the table with his handkerchief.

"It's almost too dark to see what one is doing," he said.

"It is," she assented gravely, and turned back quietly to the fire, not offering to assist. A soft veil of reserve seemed to have descended upon her. She did not speak again until he had remedied the disaster and brought her some tea. Then, with absolute composure, she raised her eyes to his.

"You were going to tell me something about Piers Evesham," she said.

His eyes looked back into hers with a certain steeliness, as though they sought to penetrate her reserve.

"I was," he said, after a moment, "though I don't suppose it will interest you very greatly. I had it from Miss Whalley, but I was not told the source of her information. Rumour says that the young man is engaged to Miss Ina Rose of Wardenhurst."

"Oh, really?" said Avery. She took the cup he offered her with a hand that was perfectly steady, though she was conscious of the fact that her face was pale. "They are abroad, I think?"

"Yes, in the Riviera." Tudor's eyes fell away from hers abruptly. "At least they have been. Someone said they were coming home." He stooped to put wood on the fire, and there fell a silence.

Avery spoke after a moment. "No doubt he will be happier married."

"I wonder," said Tudor. "I should say myself that he has the sort of temperament that is never satisfied. He's too restless for that. I don't think Miss Ina Rose is greatly to be envied."

"Unless she loves him," said Avery. She spoke almost under her breath, her eyes upon the fire. Tudor, standing beside her with his elbow on the mantelpiece, was still conscious of that filmy veil of reserve floating between them. It chafed him, but it was too intangible a thing to tear aside.

He waited therefore in silence, watching her face, the tender lines of her mouth, the sweet curves that in childhood must have made a perfect picture of happiness.

She raised her eyes at length. "Dr. Tudor!"

And then she realized his scrutiny, and a soft flush rose and overspread her pale face. She lifted her straight brows questioningly.

And all in a moment Tudor found himself speaking,—not of his own volition, not the words he had meant to speak, but nervously, stammeringly, giving utterance to the thoughts that suddenly welled over from his soul. "I've been wanting to speak for ages. I couldn't get it out. But it's no good keeping it in, is it? I don't get any nearer that way. I don't want to vex you, make you feel uncomfortable. No one knows better than I that I haven't much to offer. But I can give you a home and—and all my love, if you will have it. It may seem a small thing to you, but it's bigger than the calf-love of an infant like young Evesham. I know he dared to let his fancy stray your way, and you see now what it was worth. But mine—mine isn't fancy."

And there he stopped; for Avery had risen and was facing him in the firelight with eyes of troubled entreaty.

"Oh, please," she said, "please don't go on!"

He stood upright with a jerk. The distress on her face restored his normal self-command more quickly than any words. Half-mechanically he reached out and took her tea-cup, setting it down on the mantelpiece before her.

"Don't be upset!" he said. "I didn't mean to upset you. I shan't go on, if it is against your wish."

"It is," said Avery. She spoke tremulously, locking her hands fast together. "It must be my own fault," she said, "I'm dreadfully sorry. I hoped you weren't—really in earnest."

He smiled at that with a touch of cynicism. "Did you think I was amusing myself—or you? Sit down again, won't you? There is no occasion whatever for you to be distressed. I assure you that you are in no way to blame."

"I am dreadfully sorry," Avery repeated.

"That's nice of you. I had scarcely dared to flatter myself that you would be—glad. So you see, you have really nothing to reproach yourself with. I am no worse off than I was before."

She put out her hand to him with a quick, confiding gesture. "You are very kind to put it in that way. I value your friendship so much, so very much. Yes, and I value your love too. It's not a small thing to me. Only, you know—you know—" she faltered a little—"I've been married before, and—though I loved my husband—my married life was a tragedy. Oh yes, he loved me too. It wasn't that sort of misery. It was—it was drink."

"Poor girl!" said Tudor.

He spoke with unwonted gentleness, and he held her hand with the utmost kindness. There was nothing of the rejected lover in his attitude. He was man enough to give her his first sympathy.

Avery's lips were quivering. She went on with a visible effort. "He died a violent death. He was killed in a quarrel with another man. I was told it was an accident, but it didn't seem like that to me. And—it had an effect on me. It made me hard—made me bitter."

"You, Avery!" Tudor's voice was gravely incredulous.

She turned her face to the fire, and he saw on her lashes the gleam of tears. "I've never told anyone that; but it's the truth. It seemed to me that life was cruel, mainly because of men's vices. And women were created only to go under. It was a horrid sort of feeling to have, but it has never wholly left me. I don't think I could ever face marriage a second time."

"Oh yes, you could," said Tudor, quietly, "if you loved the man."

She shook her head. "I am too old to fall in love. I have somehow missed the romance of life. I know what it is, but it will never come to me now."

"And you won't marry without?" he said.

"No."

There fell a pause; then, still with the utmost quietness, he relinquished her hand. "I think you are right," he said. "Marriage without love on both sides is a ship without ballast. Yet, I can't help thinking that you are mistaken in your idea that you have lost the capacity for that form of love. You may know what it is. Most women do. But I wonder if you have ever really felt it."

"Not to the full," Avery answered, her voice very low. "Then I was too young. Mine was just a child's rapture and it was simply extinguished when I came to know the kind of burden I had to bear. It all faded so quickly, and the reality was so terribly grim. Now—now I look on the world with experienced eyes. I am too old."

"You think experience destroys romance?" said Tudor.

She looked at him. "Don't you?"

"No," he said. "If it did, I do not think you would be afraid to marry me. Don't think I am trying to persuade you! I am not. But are you sure that in refusing me you are not sacrificing substance to shadow?"

"I don't quite understand you," she said.

He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I can't be more explicit. No doubt you will follow your own instincts. But allow me to say that I don't think you are the sort of woman to go through life unmated; and though I may not be romantic, I am sound. I think I could give you a certain measure of happiness. But the choice is yours. I can only bow to your decision."

There was a certain dignity in his speech that gave it weight. Avery listened in silence, and into silence the words passed.

Several seconds slipped away, then without effort Tudor came back to everyday things. "Sit down, won't you? Your tea is getting cold."

Avery sat down, and he handed it to her, and after a moment turned aside to the table.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I have just come back from the Vicarage."

"Oh, have you?" Avery looked round quickly. "You went to see Jeanie?"

"Yes." Tudor spoke gravely. "I also saw the Vicar. I told him the child must go away. That cough of hers is tearing her to pieces. She ought to go to the South Coast. I told him so."

"Oh! What did he say?" Avery spoke with eagerness. She had been longing to suggest that very proposal for some time past.

Tudor smiled into his cup. "He said it was a total impossibility. That was the starting-point. At the finish it was practically decided that you should take her away next week."

"I!" said Avery.

"Yes, you. Mrs. Lorimer will manage all right now. The nurse can look after her and the little ones without assistance. And the second girl—Olive isn't it?—can look after the Reverend Stephen. It's all arranged in fact, unless it fails to meet with your approval, in which case of course the whole business must be reconsidered."

"But of course I approve," Avery said. "I would do anything that lay in my power. But I don't quite like the idea of leaving Mrs. Lorimer."

"She will be all right," Tudor asserted again. "She wouldn't be happy away from her precious husband, and she would sooner have you looking after Jeanie than anyone. She told me so."

"She always thinks of others first," said Avery.

"So does someone else I know," rejoined Tudor. "It's just a habit some women have,—not always a good habit from some points of view. We may regard it as settled then, may we? You really have no objections to raise?"

"None," said Avery. "I think the idea is excellent. I have been feeling troubled about Jeanie nearly all the winter. This last cold has worn her out terribly."

Tudor nodded. "Yes."

He drank his tea thoughtfully, and then spoke again. "I sounded her this afternoon. The left lung is not in a healthy condition. She will need all the attention you can give her if she is going to throw off the mischief. It has not gone very far at present, but—to be frank with you—I am very far from satisfied that she can muster the strength." He got up and began to pace the room. "I have not said this plainly to anyone else. I don't want to frighten Mrs. Lorimer before I need. The poor soul has enough to bear without this added. Possibly the change will work wonders. Possibly she will pull round. Children have marvellous recuperative powers. But I have seen this sort of thing a good many times before, and—" he came back to the hearth—"it doesn't make me happy."

"I am glad you have told me," Avery said.

"I had to tell you. I believe you more than half suspected it." Tudor spoke restlessly; his thoughts were evidently not of his companion at that moment. "There are of course a good many points in her favour. She is a good, obedient child with a placid temperament. And the summer is before us. We shall have to work hard this summer, Mrs. Denys." He smiled at her abruptly. "It is like building a sea-wall when the tide is out. We've got to make it as strong as possible before the tide comes back."

"You may rely on me to do my very best," Avery said earnestly.

He nodded. "Thank you. I know I may. I always do. Hence my confidence in you. May I give you some more tea?"

He quitted the subject as suddenly as he had embarked upon it. There was something very friendly in his treatment of her. She knew with unquestioning intuition that for the future he would keep strictly within the bounds of friendship unless he had her permission to pass beyond them. And it was this knowledge that emboldened her at parting to say, with her hand in his: "You are very, very good to me. I would like to thank you if I could."

He pressed her hand with the kindness of an old friend. "No, don't thank me!" he said, smiling at her in a way that somehow went to her heart. "I shall always be at your service. But I'd rather you took it as a matter of course. I feel more comfortable that way."

Avery left him at length and trudged home through the mud with a curious feeling of uncertainty in her soul. It was as though she had been vouchsafed a far glimpse of destiny which had been too fleeting for her comprehension.



CHAPTER XXVII

SHADOW

The preparations that must inevitably precede a departure for an indefinite length of time kept Avery from dwelling overmuch on what had passed on that gusty afternoon when she had taken shelter in the doctor's house.

Whether or not she believed the rumour concerning Piers she scarcely asked herself. For some reason into which she did not enter she was firmly resolved to exclude him from her mind, and she welcomed the many occupations that kept her thoughts engrossed. No word from him had reached her since that daring letter written nearly three months before, just after his departure. It seemed that he had accepted her answer just as she had meant him to accept it, and that he had nothing more to say. So at least she viewed the matter, not suffering any inward question to arise.

She saw Lennox Tudor several times before the last day arrived. He did not seek her out. It simply came about in the ordinary course of things. He was plainly determined that neither in public nor private should there be any secret sense of embarrassment between them. And for this also she was grateful, liking him for his blunt consideration for her better than she had ever liked him before.

It was on the evening of the day preceding her departure with Jeanie that she ran down in the dusk to the post at the end of the lane with a letter. Her Australian friend had written to propose a visit, and she had been obliged to put him off.

There was a bitter wind blowing, but she hastened along hatless, with a cloak thrown round her shoulders. Past the church with its sheltering yew-trees she ran, intent only upon executing her errand in as short a time as possible.

Her hair blew loose about her face, and before she reached her goal she was ashamed of her untidiness, but it was not worth while to return for a hat, and she pressed on with a girl's impetuosity, hoping that she would meet no one.

The hope was not to be fulfilled. She reached the box and deposited her letter therein, but as she turned from doing so, there came the fall of a horse's hoofs along the road at the end of the lane.

She caught the sound, and was pierced by a sudden, quite unaccountable suspicion. Swiftly she gathered her cloak more securely about her, and hastened away.

Instantly it seemed to her that the hoof-beats quickened. The lane was steep, and she realized in a moment that if the rider turned up in her wake, she must very speedily be overtaken. She slackened her pace therefore, and walked on more quietly, straining her ears to listen, not venturing to look back.

Round the corner came the advancing animal at a brisk trot. She had known in her heart that it would be so. She had known from the first moment of hearing those hoof-beats, that Fate, strong and relentless, was on her track.

How she had known it she could not have said, but the wild clamour of her heart stifled any reasoning that she might have tried to form. Her breath came and went like the breath of a hunted creature. She could not hurry because of the trembling of her knees. Every instinct was urging her to flee, but she lacked the strength. She drew instead nearer to the wall, hoping against hope that in the gathering darkness he would pass her by.

Nearer and nearer came the hammering hoofs. She could hear the horse's sharp breathing, the creak of leather. And then suddenly she found she could go no further. She stopped and leaned against the wall.

She saw the animal pulled suddenly in, and knew that she was caught. With a great effort she lifted a smiling face, and simulated surprise.

"You! How do you do?"

"You knew it was me," said Piers rather curtly.

He dropped from the saddle with the easy grace that always marked his movements, and came to her, leaving the animal free.

"Why were you running away from me?" he said. "Did you want to cut me?"

He must have felt the trembling of her hand, for all in a moment his manner changed. His fingers closed upon hers with warm assurance. He suddenly laughed into her face.

"Don't answer either of those questions!" he said. "Didn't you expect to see me? We came home yesterday, thank the gods! I'm deadly sick of being away."

"Haven't you enjoyed yourself?" Avery managed to ask.

He laughed again somewhat grimly. "I wasn't out for enjoyment. I've been—amusing myself more or less. But that's not the same thing, is it? I should have drowned myself if I'd stayed out there much longer."

"Don't talk nonsense!" said Avery.

She spoke with a touch of sharpness. Her agitation had passed leaving her vexed with herself and with him.

He received the admonition with a grimace. "Have you heard about my engagement yet?" he enquired irrelevantly, after a moment.

Avery looked at him very steadily through the falling dusk. She had a feeling that he was trying to hoodwink her by some means not wholly praiseworthy.

"Are you engaged?" she asked him, point-blank.

He made a careless gesture. "Everybody says so."

"Are you engaged?" Avery repeated with resolution.

She freed her hand as she uttered the question the second time. She was standing up very straight against the churchyard wall sternly determined to check all trifling.

Piers straightened himself also. From the pride of his attitude she thought that he was about to take offence, but his voice held none as he made reply.

"I am not."

She felt as if some constriction at her heart, of which till that moment she had scarcely been aware, had suddenly slackened. She drew a long, deep breath.

"Sorry, what?" suggested Piers.

He began to tap a careless tattoo with his whip on the toe of his boot. He did not appear to be regarding her very closely. Yet she did not feel at her ease. That sudden sense as of strain relaxed had left her curiously unsteady.

She ignored his question and asked another. "Why is everybody saying that you are engaged?"

He lifted his shoulders. "Because everybody is more or less of a gossiping fool, I should say. Still," he threw up his head with a laugh, "notions of that sort have their uses. My grandfather for instance is firmly of the opinion that I have come home to be married. I didn't undeceive him."

"You let him believe—what wasn't true?" said Avery slowly.

He looked straight at her, with his head flung back. "I did. It suited my purpose. I wanted to get home. He thought it was because the Roses had returned to Wardenhurst. I let him think so. It certainly was deadly without them."

It was then that Avery turned and began quietly to walk on up the hill. He linked his arm in Pompey's bridle, and walked beside her.

She spoke after a few moments with something of constraint. "And how have you been—amusing yourself?"

"I?" Carelessly he made reply. "I have been playing around with Ina Rose chiefly—to save us both from boredom."

There sounded a faint jeering note behind the carelessness of his voice. Avery quickened her pace almost unconsciously.

"It's all right," said Piers. "There's been no damage done."

"You don't know that," said Avery, without looking at him.

"Yes, I do. She'll marry Dick Guyes. I told her she would the night before they left, and she didn't say she wouldn't. He's a much better chap than I am, you know," said Piers, with an odd touch of sincerity. "And he's head over ears in love with her into the bargain."

"Are you trying to excuse yourself?" said Avery.

He laughed. "What for? For not marrying Ina Rose? I assure you I never meant to marry her."

"For trifling with her." Avery's voice was hard, but he affected not to notice.

"A game's a game," he said lightly.

Avery stopped very suddenly and faced round upon him. "That sort of game," she said, and her voice throbbed with the intensity of her indignation, "is monstrous—is contemptible—a game that none but blackguards ever stoop to play!"

Piers stood still. "Great Scott!" he said softly.

Avery swept on. Once roused, she was ruthless in her arraignment.

"Men—some men—find it amusing to go through life breaking women's hearts just for the sport of the thing. They regard it as a pastime, in the same light as fox-hunting or cards or racing. And when the game is over, they laugh among themselves and say what fools women are. And so they may be, and so they are, many of them. But is it honourable, is it manly, to take advantage of their weakness? I never thought you were that sort. I thought you were at least honest."

"Did you?" said Piers.

He was holding himself very straight and stiff, just as he had held himself on that day in the winter when she had so indignantly intervened to save his dog from his ungovernable fury. But he did not seem to resent her attack, and in spite of herself Avery's own resentment began to wane. She suddenly remembered that her very protest was an admission of intimacy of which he would not scruple to avail himself if it suited his purpose, and with this thought in her mind she paused in confusion.