It
was a serious drain on Piers Otway's resources, but he could not
bargain long, the talk sickened him. And when the letters were in his
possession, he felt a joy which had no equivalent in terms of cash.

He said to himself that he had bought them for Olga. In a measure, of
course, for all who would be relieved by knowing that Mrs. Hannaford
had told the truth; but first and foremost for Olga. On Olga he kept
his thoughts. He was persuading himself that in her he saw his heart's
desire.

For Piers Otway was one of those men who cannot live without a woman's
image to worship. Irene Derwent being now veiled from him, he turned to
another beautiful face, in whose eyes the familiar light of friendship
seemed to be changing, softening. Ambition had misled him; not his to
triumph on the heights of glorious passion; for him a humbler happiness
a calmer love. Yet he would not have been Piers Otway had this mood
contented him. On the second day of his dreaming about Olga, she began
to shine before his imagination in no pale light. He mused upon her
features till they became the ideal beauty; he clad her, body and soul,
in all the riches of love's treasure-house; she was at length his
crowned lady, his perfect vision of delight.

With such thoughts had he sat by Mrs. Hannaford, at the meeting which
was to be their last. He was about to utter them, when she spoke Olga's
name. "In you she will always have a friend? If the worst happens----?"
And when he asked, "May I hope that she would some day let me be more
than that?" the glow of joy on that stricken face, the cry of rapture,
the hand held to him, stirred him so deeply that his old love-longing
seemed a boyish fantasy. "Oh, you have made me happy! You have blotted
out all my follies and sufferings!" Then the poor tortured mind lost
itself.

This was the second death which had upon Piers Otway the ageing effect
known to all men capable of thoughts about mortality. The loss of his
father marked for him the end of irresponsible years; he entered upon
manhood with that grief blended of reverence and affection. By the
grave of Mrs. Hannaford (he stood there only after the burial) he was
touched again by the advancing shadow of life's dial, and it marked the
end of youth. For youth is a term relative to heart and mind. At
six-and-twenty many a man has of manhood only the physique; many
another is already falling through experience to a withered age. Piers
had the sense of tra