his lips. "No, I
won't let you," she said, in a tone he did not understand.

He clasped her to him. "It's because I worship you so," he whispered
passionately. "There is no one else in the world but you. I adore you! I
adore you!"

She closed her eyes from the fiery worship that looked forth from his.
"Piers," she said, "wait, dear, wait!"

"Why should I wait?" he demanded almost fiercely.

"Because I ask you. Because--just now--to be loved like that is more than
I can bear. Will you--can you--kiss me only, once, and go?"

He held her in his arms. He gazed long and burningly upon her. In
the end he stopped and with reverence he kissed her. "I am going,
Avery," he said.

She opened her eyes to him. "God bless you, my own Piers!" she murmured
softly, and laid her cheek for a moment against his sleeve ere he took
his arm away.

As for Piers, he went from her as if he feared to trespass, and her heart
smote her a little as she watched him go. But she would not call him
back. She went instead to one of the great bay windows and leaned against
the framework, gazing out. He was very good to her in all things, but
there were times when she felt solitude to be an absolute necessity. His
vitality, his fevered desire for her, wore upon her nerves. His attitude
towards her was not wholly natural. It held something of a menace to her
peace which disquieted her vaguely. She had a feeling that though she
knew herself to be all he wanted in the world, yet she did not succeed in
fully satisfying him. He seemed to be perpetually craving for something
further, as though somewhere deep within him there burned a fiery thirst
that nothing could ever slake. Her lightest touch seemed to awake it, and
there were moments when his unfettered passion made her afraid.

Not for worlds would she have had him know it. Her love for him was too
deep to let her shrink; and she knew that only by that love did she
maintain her ascendancy, appealing to his higher nature as only true love
can appeal. But the perpetual strain of it told upon her, and that night
she felt tired in body and soul.

The great bedroom behind her with its dark hangings and oak furniture
seemed dreary and unhome-like. She viewed the ancient and immense
four-poster with misgiving and wondered if Queen Elizabeth had ever
slept in it.

After a time she investigated Piers' room beyond, and found it less
imposing though curiously stiff and wholly lacking in ordinary
cheery c