Avery laughed a little.  “I don’t think she approves of any men except the clergy.”

“Oh yes, she clings like a leech to the skirts of the Church,” said Piers irreverently.  “There are plenty of her sort about—­wherever there are parsons, in fact.  Of course it’s the parsons’ fault.  If they didn’t encourage ’em they wouldn’t be there.”

“I don’t know that,” said Avery, with a smile.  “I think you’re a little hard on parsons.”

“Do you?  Well, I don’t know many.  The Reverend Stephen is enough for me.  I fight shy of all the rest.”

“My dear, how very narrow of you!” said Avery.

He turned to her boyishly.  “Don’t tell me you want to be a female curate like the Whalley!  I couldn’t bear it!”

“I haven’t the smallest leaning in that direction,” Avery assured him.  “But at the same time, one of my greatest friends is about to enter the Church, and I do want you to meet and like him.”

A sudden silence followed her words.  Piers resumed the peeling of his stick with minute attention.  “I am sure to like him if you do,” he remarked, after a moment.

She touched his arm lightly.  “Thank you, dear.  He is an Australian, and the very greatest-hearted man I ever met.  He stood by me in a time of great trouble.  I don’t know what I should have done without him.  I hope he won’t feel hurt, but I haven’t even told him of my marriage yet.”

“We have been married just ten hours,” observed Piers, still intent upon his task.

She laughed again.  “Yes, but it is ten days since we became engaged, and I owe him a letter into the bargain.  He wanted to arrange to meet me in town one day; but he is still too busy to fix a date.  He is studying very hard.”

“What’s his name?” said Piers.

“Crowther—­Edmund Crowther.  He has been a farmer for years in Queensland.”  Avery, paused a moment.  “It was he who broke the news to me of my husband’s death,” she said, in a low voice.  “I told you about that, Piers.”

“You did,” said Piers.

His tone was deliberately repressive, and a little quiver of disappointment went through Avery.  She became silent, and the magic of the woods closed softly in upon them.  Evening was drawing on, and the long, golden rays of sunshine lay like a benediction over the quiet earth.

The silence between them grew and expanded into something of a barrier.  From her seat on a fallen tree Avery gazed out before her.  She could not see Piers’ face which was bent above the stick which he had begun to whittle with his knife.  He was sitting on the ground at her feet, and only his black head was visible to her.

Suddenly, almost fiercely, he spoke.  “I know Edmund Crowther.”

Avery’s eyes came down to him in astonishment.  “You know him!”

“Yes, I know him.”  He worked furiously at his stick without looking up.  His words came in quick jerks, as if for some reason he wanted to get them spoken without delay.  “I met him years ago.  He did me a good turn—­helped me out of a tight corner.  A few weeks ago—­when I was at Monte Carlo with my grandfather—­I met him again.  He told me then that he knew you.  Of course it was a rum coincidence.  Heaven only knows what makes these things happen.  You needn’t write to him, I will.”