. He lifted his face to the night sky. "Yes,--thank
God,--all!" he said.

CHAPTER V

THE SWORD FALLS

As Miss Whalley had predicted, Ina Rose's wedding was a very grand affair
indeed. Everyone who was anyone attended it, and a good many besides. It
took place in the midst of a spell of sultry weather, during which the
sun shone day after day with brazen strength and the heat was intense.

It was the sort of weather Piers revelled in. It suited his tropical
nature. But it affected Avery very differently. All her customary energy
wilted before it, and yet she was strangely restless also. A great
reluctance to attend the wedding possessed her, wherefore she could not
have said. But for some reason Piers was determined that she should go.
He was even somewhat tyrannical on the subject, and rather than have a
discussion Avery had yielded the point. For Piers was oddly difficult in
those days. Crowther's visit, which had barely run into forty-eight
hours, seemed to have had a disquieting effect upon him. There had
developed a curious, new-born mastery in his attitude towards her, which
she sometimes found it hard to endure. She missed the chivalry of the
early days. She missed the sweetness of his boyish adoration.

She did not understand him, but she knew that he was not happy. He never
took her into his confidence, never alluded by word or sign to the change
which he must have realized that she could not fail to notice. And Avery
on her part made no further effort to open the door that was so
strenuously locked against her. With an aching heart she gave herself to
the weary task of waiting, convinced that sooner or later the nature of
the barrier which he so stubbornly ignored would be revealed to her. But
it was impossible to extend her full confidence to him. Moreover, he
seemed to shrink from all intimate subjects. Instinctively and wholly
involuntarily she withdrew into herself, meeting reserve with reserve.
Since he had become master rather than lover, she yielded him obedience,
and she hid away her love, not deliberately or intentionally, but rather
with the impulse to protect from outrage that which was holy. He was not
asking love of her just then.

She saw but little of him during the day. He was busy on the estate, busy
with the coming election, busy with a hundred and one matters that
evidently occupied his thoughts very fully. The heat seemed to imbue him
with inexhaustible energy. He never seemed ti