He ceased to speak, and suddenly Avery saw that his hands were trembling—­trembling violently as the hands of a man with an ague.  She watched them silently, wondering at his agitation, till Piers, becoming aware of her scrutiny, abruptly flung aside the stick upon which he had been expending so much care and leaped to his feet with a laugh that sounded oddly strained to her ears.

“Come along!” he said.  “If we sit here talking like Darby and Joan much longer, we shall forget that it’s actually our wedding-day.”

Avery looked up at him without rising, a queer sense of foreboding at her heart.  “Then Edmund Crowther is a friend of yours,” she said.  “A close friend?”

He stood above her, and she saw a very strange look in his eyes—­almost a desperate look.

“Quite a close friend,” he said in answer.  “But he won’t be if you waste any more thought on him for many days to come.  I want your thoughts all for myself.”

Again he laughed, holding out his hands to her with a gesture that compelled rather than invited.  She yielded to his insistence, but with a curious, hurt feeling as of one repulsed.  It was as if he had closed a door in her face, not violently or in any sense rudely, yet with such evident intention that she had almost heard the click of the key in the lock.

Hand in hand they went through the enchanted wood; and for ever after, the scent of mountain-ash blossom was to Avery a bitter-sweet memory of that which should have been wholly sweet.

As for Piers, she did not know what was in his mind, though she was aware for a time of a lack of spontaneity behind his tenderness which disquieted her vaguely.  She felt as if a shadow had fallen upon him, veiling his inner soul from her sight.

Yet when they sat together in the magic quiet of the spring night in a garden that had surely been planted for lovers the cloud lifted, and she saw him again in all the ardour of his love for her.  For he poured it out to her there in the silence, eagerly, burningly,—­the worship that had opened to her the gate of that paradise which she had never more hoped to tread.

She put her doubts and fears away from her, she answered to his call.  He had awaked the woman’s heart in her, and she gave freely, impulsively, not measuring her gift.  If she could not offer him a girl’s first rapture, she could bestow that which was infinitely greater—­the deep, strong love of a woman who had suffered and knew how to endure.

They sat in the dewy garden till in the distant woods the nightingales began their passion-steeped music, and then—­because the ecstasy of the night was almost more than she could bear—­Avery softly freed herself from her husband’s arm and rose.

“Going?” he asked quickly.

He remained seated holding her hand fast locked in his.  She looked down into his upraised face, conscious that her own was in shadow and that she need not try to hide the tears that had risen inexplicably to her eyes.