e every night for being late." He gave a
broken laugh. "Avery, if it weren't for you, I--I believe I should
shoot myself."

"Come and sit down!" said Avery gently. She drew him to a couch, and
they sat down locked together.

During all the ten weeks of their absence he had scarcely even mentioned
his grandfather. He had been gay and inconsequent, or fiercely passionate
in his devotion to her. But of his loss he had never spoken, and vaguely
she had known that he had shut it out of his life with that other grim
shadow that dwelt behind the locked door she might not open. She had not
deemed him heartless, but she had regretted that deliberate shirking of
his grief. She had known that sooner or later he would have to endure the
scourging of which he spoke and that it would not grow the lighter with
postponement.

And now as she held him against her heart, she was in a sense relieved
that it had come at last, thankful to be there with him while he stripped
himself of all subterfuge and faced his sorrow.

He could not speak much as he sat there clasped in her arms. One or two
attempts he made, and then broke down against her breast. But no words
were needed. Her arms were all he desired for consolation, and if they
waked in him the old wild remorse, he stifled it ere it could take full
possession.

Finally, when the first bitterness had passed, they sat and talked
together, and he found relief in telling her of the life he had lived in
close companionship with the old man.

"We quarrelled a dozen times," he said. "But somehow we could neither of
us keep it up. I don't know why. We were violent enough at times. There's
an Evesham devil somewhere in our ancestry, and he has a trick of
cropping up still in moments of excitement. You've met him more than
once. He's a formidable monster, what?"

"I am not afraid of him," said Avery, with her cheek against his
black head.

He gave a shaky laugh. "You'd fling a bucket of water over Satan himself!
I love you for not being afraid. But I don't know how you manage it, and
that's a fact. Darling, I'm a selfish brute to wear you out like this.
Send me away when you can't stand any more of me!"

"Would you go?" she said, softly stroking his cheek.

He caught her hand again and kissed it hotly, devouringly, in answer.
"But I mustn't wear you out," he said, a moment later, with an odd
wistfulness. "You mustn't let me, Avery."

She drew her hand gently away from the clinging of