ng had never been.

But the memory of it overhung them both, and finally at the end of a
lengthy silence Sir Beverley turned his stone-grey eyes upon his grandson
and spoke.

"Well? What have you to say for yourself?"

Piers came out of a reverie and looked up with a faint rueful smile.
"Nothing, sir," he said.

"Nothing? What do you mean by that?" Sir Beverley's voice was sharp. "You
go away like a raving lunatic, and stay away all night, and then come
back with nothing to say. What have you been up to? Tell me that!"

Piers leaned slowly forward, took up the poker and gently pushed it
into the fire. "She won't have me," he said, with his eyes upon the
leaping flames.

"What?" exclaimed Sir Beverley. "You've been after that hussy again?"

Piers' brows drew together in a thick, ominous line; but he merely nodded
and said, "Yes."

"The devil you have!" ejaculated Sir Beverley. "And she refused you?"

"She did." Again very softly Piers poked at the blazing logs, his eyes
fixed and intent. "It served me right--in a way," he said, speaking
meditatively, almost as if to himself. "I was a hound--to ask her.
But--somehow--I was driven. However," he drove the poker in a little
further, "it's all the same now as she's refused me. That's why," he
turned his eyes suddenly upon Sir Beverley, "there's nothing to be said."

There was no defiance in his look, but it held something of a baffling
quality. It was almost as if in some fashion he were conscious of relief.

Sir Beverley stared at him, angry and incredulous. "Refused you! What the
devil for? Wanted my consent, I suppose? Thought I held the
purse-strings, eh?"

"Oh no," said Piers, again faintly smiling, "she didn't care a damn about
that. She knows I am not dependent upon you. But--she has no use for me,
that's all."

"No use for you!" Sir Beverley's voice rose. "What the--what the devil
does she want then, I should like to know?"

"She doesn't want anyone," said Piers. "At least she thinks she doesn't.
You see, she's been married before."

There was a species of irony in his voice that yet was without
bitterness. He turned back to his aimless stirring of the fire, and there
fell a silence between them.

But Sir Beverley's eyes were fixed upon his grandson's face in a close,
unsparing scrutiny. "So you thought you might as well come back," he
said at last.

"She made me," said Piers, without looking round.

"Made you!"

Again Piers nodded. "I was to