n the capacity of escort to Mrs. Denys. Have you any fault to find
with that?"

Olive returned his look steadily with her cold grey eyes while she
considered his words. She seemed momentarily at a loss for an answer, but
Piers' first remarks were scarcely of a character to secure goodwill or
allay suspicion. She rapidly made up her mind.

"I shall tell Miss Whalley in the morning," she said. "My father said I
was to go to her if anything went wrong." She added, with a malevolent
glance towards Avery, "I suppose you know that Mrs. Denys is under notice
to leave at the end of her month?"

Piers glanced at Avery too--a glance of swift interrogation. She nodded
very slightly in answer.

He looked again at Olive with eyes that gleamed in a fashion that few
could have met without quailing.

"Is she indeed?" he said. "I venture to predict that she will leave
before then. If you are anxious to impart news to Miss Whalley, you may
tell her also that Mrs. Denys is going to be my wife, and that the
marriage will take place--" he looked at Avery again and all the hardness
went out of his face--"just as soon as she will permit."

Dead silence followed the announcement. Avery's face was pale, but there
was a faint smile at her lips. She met Piers' look without a tremor. She
even drew slightly nearer to him; and he, instantly responding, slipped a
swift hand through her arm.

Olive, sternly judicial, stood regarding them in silence, for perhaps a
score of seconds. And then, still undismayed, she withdrew her forces in
good order from the field.

"In that case," she said, with the air of one closing a discussion,
"there is nothing further to be said. I suppose Mrs. Denys wishes to
be Lady Evesham. My father told me she was an adventuress. I see he
was right."

She went away with this parting shot, stepping high and holding her
head poised loftily--an absurd parody of the Vicar in his most
clerical moments.

Avery gave a little hysterical gasp of laughter as she passed out of
sight.

Piers' arm was about her in a moment. He held her against his heart.
"What a charming child, what?" he murmured.

She hid her face on his shoulder. "I think myself she was in the right,"
she said, still half laughing. "Piers, you must go."

"In a moment. Let me hear from your own dear lips first that you are
not--not angry?" He spoke the words softly into her ear. There was only
tenderness in the holding of his arms.

"I am not," she whis