ent through her.

"Tell me, Avery!" he insisted. "If you felt yourself able to get away
from old burdens, and if--if there was no earthly reason why they should
hamper your future--" He broke off, and again his arm tightened. "It's
damnable that they should!" he muttered savagely.

"My dear, I don't know how to answer you," she said. "Are--you afraid to
be open with me? Do you think I shouldn't understand?"

His eyes fell abruptly. "I am quite sure," he said, "that it would be
easier for me to give you up." And with that he suddenly set her free and
stood up before her straight and stiff. "Let me see you home!" he said.

They faced one another in the dimness, and Avery marked afresh the
weariness of his face. He looked like a man who had come through many
days and nights of suffering.

He glanced up as she did not speak. "Shall we go?" he said.

But Avery stood hesitating, asking herself if this could indeed be the
end, if the impulse that had drawn her thither had been after all a
mistaken one, or if even yet it might not carry her further than she had
ever thought to go.

He turned towards the conservatory door by which she had entered, and
quietly opened it. A soft wind blew through to her, laden with the scent
of the wet earth and a thousand opening buds. It seemed to carry the
promise of eternal hope on unseen wings straight to her heart.

Slowly she followed him across the room, reached him, passed through into
the scented darkness. A few steps more and she would have been in the
open air, but she was uncertain of the way. The place was too dim for her
to see it. She paused for him to guide her.

The door closed behind her; she heard it softly swing on its hinges, and
then came his light footfall close to her.

"Straight on!" he said, and his voice sounded oddly cold and constrained.
"There are three steps at the end. Be careful how you go! Perhaps you
would rather wait while I fetch a light."

His tone hurt her subtly, wounding her more deeply than she had realized
that he had it in his power to wound.

She moved forward blindly with a strangled sensation at her throat and a
rush of hot tears in her eyes. She had never dreamed that Piers--the
warm-hearted, the eager--had it in him to treat her so.

The instinct to escape awoke within her. She quickened her steps and
reached the further door. Before her lay the open night, immense and
quiet and very dark. She pressed forward, hoping he would not foll