ntirely to Avery's motherly care while the golden
days slipped by.

With July came heat, intense, oppressive, airless; and Jeanie flagged
again. A copper-coloured mist rose every morning over the sea, blotting
out the sky-line, veiling the passing ships. Strange voices called
through the fog, sirens hooted to one another persistently.

"They are like people who have lost each other," Jeanie said once, and
the simile haunted Avery's imagination.

And then one sunny day a pleasure-steamer passed quite near the shore
with a band on board. They were playing _The Little Grey Home in the
West_, and very oddly Jeanie's eyes filled with sudden tears.

Avery did not take any notice for a few moments, but as the strains
died-away over the glassy water, she leaned towards the child.

"My darling, what is it?" she whispered tenderly.

Jeanie's hand found its way into hers. "Oh, don't you ever want Piers?"
she murmured wistfully. "I do!"

It was the first time she had spoken his name to Avery since they had
left him alone nearly a year before, and almost as soon as she had
uttered it she made swift apology.

"Please forgive me, dear Avery! It just slipped out."

"My dear!" Avery said, and kissed her.

There fell a long silence between them. Avery's eyes were on the thick
heat-haze that obscured the sky-line. In her brain there sounded again
those words that Maxwell Wyndham had spoken so short a time before. "Give
her everything she wants! It's all you can do for her now."

But behind those words was something that shrank and quivered like a
frightened child. Could she give her this one thing? Could she?
Could she?

It would mean the tearing open of a wound that was scarcely closed. It
would mean a calling to life of a bitterness that was hardly past. It
would mean--it would mean--

"Avery darling!" Softly Jeanie's voice broke through her agitated
thoughts.

Avery turned and looked at her,--the frail, sweet face with its shining
eyes of love.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," whispered Jeanie. "Don't think any more
about it!"

"Do you want him so dreadfully?" Avery said.

Jeanie's eyes were full of tears again. She tried to answer, but her lips
quivered. She turned her face aside, and was silent.

The day waxed hotter, became almost insupportable. In the afternoon
Jeanie was attacked by breathlessness and coughing, both painful to
witness. She could find no rest or comfort, and Avery was in momentary
dread of a re