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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed 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-etre 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 gla.s.s of wine, setting it before him with a professional adroitness that did not conceal his solicitude.

Piers picked up the gla.s.s almost mechanically, and in doing so caught sight of some letters lying on the table.

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" 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 d.a.m.ned--I'm d.a.m.ned 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 gla.s.s 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."