was about him a greatness, a
mute, unconscious majesty, that caught her by the throat.

She went softly to the bedside.

He turned his head at her coming, not quickly, not with any eagerness of
welcome; but with that in his eyes, a slow kindling, that seemed to
surround her with the glow of a great warmth.

But when he spoke, it was upon no intimate subject. "Has Crowther
gone?" he asked.

His voice was pitched very low. She saw that he spoke with deliberate
quietness, as if he were training himself thereto.

"Yes," she made answer. "He wouldn't stay."

"He couldn't," said Piers. "He is going to be ordained tomorrow."

"Oh, is he?" she said in surprise. "He never told me!"

"He wouldn't," said Piers. "He never talks about himself." He moved his
hand slightly towards her. "Won't you sit down?"

She glanced round. Victor was advancing behind her with a chair. Piers'
eyes followed hers, and an instant later, turning back, she saw his quick
frown. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers with the old imperious
gesture, pointing to the door; and in a moment Victor, with a smile of
peculiar gratification, put down the chair, trotted to it, opened it with
a flourish, and was gone.

Avery was left standing by the bed, slightly uncertain, wanting to smile,
but wanting much more to cry.

Piers' hand fell heavily. For a few seconds he lay perfectly still, with
quickened breathing and drawn brows. Then his fingers patted the edge of
the bed. "Sit down, sweetheart!" he said.

It was Piers the boy-lover who spoke to her with those words, and,
hearing them, something seemed to give way within her. It was as if a
tight band round her heart had suddenly been torn asunder.

She sank down on her knees beside the bed, and hid her face in his
pillow. Tears--tears such as she had not shed since the beginning
of their bitter estrangement--came welling up from her heart and
would not be restrained. She sobbed her very soul out there beside
him, subconsciously aware that in that hour his strength was
greater than hers.

Like an overwhelming torrent her distress came upon her, caught her
tempestuously, swept her utterly from her own control, tossed her hither
and thither, flung her at last into a place of deep, deep silence, where,
still kneeling with head bowed low, she became conscious, strangely,
intimately conscious, of the presence of God.

It held her like a spell, that consciousness. She was as one who kneels
before a