nt like the wind, till
Avery breathlessly cried to him to stop.

"You'll kill us both before we get there!" she protested. In answer to
which Piers moderated the pace, remarking as he did so, "But you would
like to die by my side, what?"

Victor was on the steps to receive them, Victor dancing with impatience
and delight. For his young master's prolonged honeymoon had represented
ten weeks of desolation to him.

Old David was also present, inconspicuous and dignified, waiting to pour
out tea for the travellers.

And Caesar the Dalmatian who had mourned with Victor for his absent deity
now leapt upon him in one great rush of ecstatic welcome that nearly bore
him backwards.

It was a riotous home-coming, for Piers was in boisterous spirits. They
had travelled far that day, but he was in a mood of such restless energy
that he seemed incapable of feeling fatigue.

Avery on her part was thoroughly weary, but she would not tell him so,
and they spent the whole evening in wandering about house and gardens,
discussing the advisability of various alterations and improvements. In
the end Piers awoke suddenly to the fact that she was looking utterly
exhausted, and with swift compunction piloted her to her room.

"What a fool I am!" he declared. "You must be dead beat. Why didn't you
say you wanted to rest?"

"I didn't, dear," she answered simply. "I wanted to be with you."

He caught her hand to his lips. "You are happy with me then?"

She uttered a little laugh that said more than words. "My own boy, you
give me all that the most exacting woman could possibly desire and then
ask me that!"

He laughed too, his arm close about her. "I would give you the world if I
had it. Avery, I hate to think we've come home--that the honeymoon is
over--and the old beastly burdens waiting to be shouldered--" He laid his
forehead against her neck with a gesture that made her fancy he did not
wish her to see his face for the moment. "P'r'aps I'm a heartless brute,
but I never missed the old chap all the time I was away," he whispered.
"It's like being dragged under the scourge again--just when the old scars
were beginning to heal--to come back to this empty barrack."

She slid a quick arm round his neck, all the woman's heart in her
responding to the cry from his.

"The place is full of him," Piers went on; "I meet him at every corner.
I see him in his old place on the settle in the hall, where he used to
wait for me, and--and row m