peut-etre dormir_?"

Very wistfully the little man proffered his suggestion. His eyes followed
Piers' movements with the dumb worship of an animal.

"Oh yes, I'll go to bed," said Piers.

He turned towards the dining-room and entered. There was no elation in
his step; rather he walked as a man who carries a heavy burden, and
Victor marked the fact with eyes of keen anxiety.

He followed him in and poured out a glass of wine, setting it before him
with a professional adroitness that did not conceal his solicitude.

Piers picked up the glass almost mechanically, and in doing so caught
sight of some letters lying on the table.

"Oh, damn!" he said wearily. "How many more?"

There were bundles of them on the study writing-table. They poured in by
every post.

Victor groaned commiseratingly. "I will take them away, yes?" he
suggested. "You will read them in the morning--when you have slept."

"Yes, take 'em away!" said Piers. "Stay a minute! What's that top one?
I'll look at that."

He took up the envelope. It was addressed in a man's square, firm writing
to "Piers Evesham, Esq., Rodding Abbey."

"Someone who doesn't know," murmured Piers, and slit it open with a sense
of relief. Some of the letters of condolence that he had received had
been as salt rubbed into a wound.

He took out the letter and glanced at the signature: "Edmund Crowther!"

Suddenly a veil seemed to be drawn across his eyes. He looked up with a
sharp, startled movement, and through a floating mist he saw his
grandmother's baffling smile from the canvas on the wall. The blood was
singing in his ears. He clenched his hands involuntarily. Crowther! He
had forgotten Crowther! And Crowther knew--how much?

But he had Crowther's promise of secrecy, so--after all--what had he to
fear? Nothing--nothing! Yet he felt as if a devil were laughing somewhere
in the room. They had caught him, they had caught him, there at the very
gates of deliverance. They were dragging him back to his place of
torment. He could hear the clanking of the chains which he had so nearly
burst asunder, could feel them coiling cold about his heart. For he also
was bound by a promise, the keeping of which meant utter destruction to
all he held good in life.

And not that alone. It meant the rending in pieces of that which was
holy, the trampling into the earth of that sacred gift which had only
now been bestowed upon him. It meant the breaking of a woman's
heart--that of th