pered back.

"Nor sorry?" urged Piers.

She turned her face a little towards him. "No, dear, not a bit
sorry; glad!"

He held her more closely but with reverence. "Avery, you don't--love
me, do you?"

"Of course I do!" she said.

"There can't be any 'of course' about it," he declared almost fiercely.
"I've been a positive brute to you. Avery--Avery, I'll never be a brute
to you again."

And there he stopped, for her arms were suddenly about his neck, her lips
raised in utter surrender to his.

"Oh, Piers," she said in a voice that thrilled him through and through,
"do you think I would have less of your love--even if it hurts me? It is
the greatest thing that has ever come into my life."

He held her head between his hands and looked into her eyes of perfect
trust. "Avery! Avery!" he said.

"I mean it!" she told him earnestly. "I have been drawing nearer to you
all the while--in spite of myself--though I tried so hard to hold back.
Piers, my past life is a dream, and this--this is the awaking. You asked
me--a long while ago--if the past mattered. I couldn't answer you then. I
was still half-asleep. But now--now you have worked the miracle--my heart
is awake, dear, and I will answer you. The past is nothing to you or me.
It matters--not--one--jot!"

Her words throbbed into the silence of his kiss. He held her long and
closely. Once--twice--he tried to speak to her and failed. In the end he
gave himself up mutely to the rapture of her arms. But his own wild
passion had sunk below the surface. He sought no more than she offered.

"Say good-bye to me now!" she whispered at length; and he kissed her
again closely, lingeringly, and let her go.

She stood in the doorway as he passed into the night, and his last sight
of her was thus, silhouetted against the darkness, a tall, gracious
figure, bending forward to discern him in the dimness.

He went back to his lonely home, back to the echoing emptiness, the
listening dark. He entered again the great hall where Sir Beverley had
been wont to sit and wait for him.

Victor was on the watch. He glided apologetically forward with shining,
observant eyes upon his young master's weary face.

"_Monsieur Pierre_!" he said insinuatingly.

Piers looked at him heavily. "Well?"

"I have put some refreshment for you in the dining-room. It is
more--more comfortable," said Victor, gently indicating the open
door. "Will you not--when you have eaten--go to bed, _mon cher, et