He ceased to speak, and suddenly Avery saw that his hands were trembling--trembling violently as the hands of a man with an ague. She watched them silently, wondering at his agitation, till Piers, becoming aware of her scrutiny, abruptly flung aside the stick upon which he had been expending so much care and leaped to his feet with a laugh that sounded oddly strained to her ears.

"Come along!" he said. "If we sit here talking like Darby and Joan much longer, we shall forget that it's actually our wedding-day."

Avery looked up at him without rising, a queer sense of foreboding at her heart. "Then Edmund Crowther is a friend of yours," she said. "A close friend?"

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

"Quite a close friend," he said in answer. "But he won't be if you waste any more thought on him for many days to come. I want your thoughts all for myself."

Again he laughed, holding out his hands to her with a gesture that compelled rather than invited. She yielded to his insistence, but with a curious, hurt feeling as of one repulsed. It was as if he had closed a door in her face, not violently or in any sense rudely, yet with such evident intention that she had almost heard the click of the key in the lock.

Hand in hand they went through the enchanted wood; and for ever after, the scent of mountain-ash blossom was to Avery a bitter-sweet memory of that which should have been wholly sweet.

As for Piers, she did not know what was in his mind, though she was aware for a time of a lack of spontaneity behind his tenderness which disquieted her vaguely. She felt as if a shadow had fallen upon him, veiling his inner soul from her sight.

Yet when they sat together in the magic quiet of the spring night in a garden that had surely been planted for lovers the cloud lifted, and she saw him again in all the ardour of his love for her. For he poured it out to her there in the silence, eagerly, burningly,--the worship that had opened to her the gate of that paradise which she had never more hoped to tread.

She put her doubts and fears away from her, she answered to his call. He had awaked the woman's heart in her, and she gave freely, impulsively, not measuring her gift. If she could not offer him a girl's first rapture, she could bestow that which was infinitely greater--the deep, strong love of a woman who had suffered and knew how to endure.

They sat in the dewy garden till in the distant woods the nightingales began their pa.s.sion-steeped music, and then--because the ecstasy of the night was almost more than she could bear--Avery softly freed herself from her husband's arm and rose.

"Going?" he asked quickly.

He remained seated holding her hand fast locked in his. She looked down into his upraised face, conscious that her own was in shadow and that she need not try to hide the tears that had risen inexplicably to her eyes.

"Yes, dear," she answered, with an effort at lightness. "You haven't had a smoke since dinner. I am going to leave you to have one now."

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

She bent to him after a moment with that sweet impulsiveness of hers that so greatly charmed all who loved her. "What is it, Piers? Don't you want me to go?"

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

"Want you to go!" he muttered almost inarticulately; and then suddenly he raised his face again to hers. "Avery--Avery, promise me--swear to me--that, whatever happens, you will never leave me!"

"But, my dearest, haven't I already sworn--only today?" she said, surprised by his vehemence and his request. "Of course I shall never leave you. My place is by your side."

"I know! I know!" he said. "But it isn't enough. I want you to promise me personally, so that--I shall always feel--quite sure of you. You see, Avery," his words came with difficulty, his upturned face seemed to beseech her, "I'm not--the sort of impossible, chivalrous knight that Jeanie thinks me. I'm horribly bad. I sometimes think I've got a devil inside me. And I've done things--I've done things--" His voice shook suddenly; he ended abruptly, with heaving breath. "Before I ever met you, I--wronged you."

He would have let her go then, but it was her hands that held. She stooped lower to him, divinely tender, her love seeming to spread all about him like wings, folding him in.

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

He caught at the words. "The best--the best! You shall always have that, Avery. But, my darling,--you understand--you do understand--how utterly unworthy that best is of you? You must understand that before--before--"

Again his voice went into silence; but she saw his eyes glow suddenly, hotly, in the gloom, and her heart gave a quick hard throb that caught her breath and held it for the moment suspended, waiting.

He went on after a second, mastering himself with obvious effort. "What I am trying to say is this. It's easier--or at least not impossible--to forfeit what you've never had. But afterwards--afterwards--" His hands closed tightly upon hers again; his voice sounded half-choked. "Avery, I--couldn't let you go--afterwards," he said.

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

He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "There is no reason--none whatever--I swear it! You said yourself that the past was nothing to you.

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

"But of course I meant it!" she told him. "Only, Piers, there is no secret chamber in my life that you may not enter. Perhaps some day, dear, when you come to realize that I am older than Jeanie, you will open all your doors to me!"

There was pleading in her voice, notwithstanding its note of banter; but she did not stay to plead. With the whispered words she stooped and softly kissed him. Then ere he could detain her longer she gently released herself and was gone.

He saw her light figure flit ghost-like across the dim stretch of gra.s.s and vanish into the shadows. And he started to his feet as if he would follow or call her back. But he did neither. Be only stood swaying on his feet with a face of straining impotence--as of a prisoner wrestling vainly with his iron bars--until she had gone wholly from his sight. And then with a stifled groan he dropped down again into his chair and covered his face.

He had paid a heavy price to enter the garden of his desire; but already he had begun to realize that the fruit he gathered there was Dead Sea Fruit.

CHAPTER II

THAT WHICH IS HOLY

No bells had rung at the young Squire's wedding. It had been conducted with a privacy which Miss Whalley described as "almost indecent." But there was no privacy about his return, and Miss Whalley was shocked afresh at the brazen heartlessness of it after his recent bereavement.

For Sir Piers and his wife motored home at the end of July through a village decked with flags and bunting and under a triumphant arch that made Piers' little two-seater seem absurdly insignificant; while the bells in the church-tower clanged the noisiest welcome they could compa.s.s, and Gracie--home for the holidays--mustered the school-children to cheer their hardest as the happy couple pa.s.sed the schoolhouse gate.

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

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

So they waved and were gone, at a speed which made Miss Whalley wonder what the local police could be about.

Once past the lodge-gates and Marshall's half-grudging, half-pleased smile of welcome, the speed was doubled. Piers went like the wind, till Avery breathlessly cried to him to stop.

"You'll kill us both before we get there!" she protested. In answer to which Piers moderated the pace, remarking as he did so, "But you would like to die by my side, what?"

Victor was on the steps to receive them, Victor dancing with impatience and delight. For his young master's prolonged honeymoon had represented ten weeks of desolation to him.

Old David was also present, inconspicuous and dignified, waiting to pour out tea for the travellers.

And Caesar the Dalmatian who had mourned with Victor for his absent deity now leapt upon him in one great rush of ecstatic welcome that nearly bore him backwards.

It was a riotous home-coming, for Piers was in boisterous spirits. They had travelled far that day, but he was in a mood of such restless energy that he seemed incapable of feeling fatigue.

Avery on her part was thoroughly weary, but she would not tell him so, and they spent the whole evening in wandering about house and gardens, discussing the advisability of various alterations and improvements. In the end Piers awoke suddenly to the fact that she was looking utterly exhausted, and with swift compunction piloted her to her room.

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

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

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

She uttered a little laugh that said more than words. "My own boy, you give me all that the most exacting woman could possibly desire and then ask me that!"