“Yes, dear,” she answered, with an effort at lightness.  “You haven’t had a smoke since dinner.  I am going to leave you to have one now.”

But he still held her, as if he could not let her go.

She bent to him after a moment with that sweet impulsiveness of hers that so greatly charmed all who loved her.  “What is it, Piers?  Don’t you want me to go?”

He caught her other hand in his and held them both against his lips.

“Want you to go!” he muttered almost inarticulately; and then suddenly he raised his face again to hers.  “Avery—­Avery, promise me—­swear to me—­that, whatever happens, you will never leave me!”

“But, my dearest, haven’t I already sworn—­only today?” she said, surprised by his vehemence and his request.  “Of course I shall never leave you.  My place is by your side.”

“I know!  I know!” he said.  “But it isn’t enough.  I want you to promise me personally, so that—­I shall always feel—­quite sure of you.  You see, Avery,” his words came with difficulty, his upturned face seemed to beseech her, “I’m not—­the sort of impossible, chivalrous knight that Jeanie thinks me.  I’m horribly bad.  I sometimes think I’ve got a devil inside me.  And I’ve done things—­I’ve done things—­” His voice shook suddenly; he ended abruptly, with heaving breath.  “Before I ever met you, I—­wronged you.”

He would have let her go then, but it was her hands that held.  She stooped lower to him, divinely tender, her love seeming to spread all about him like wings, folding him in.

“My dear,” she said softly, “whatever there is of bad in you,—­remember, the best is mine!”

He caught at the words.  “The best—­the best!  You shall always have that, Avery.  But, my darling,—­you understand—­you do understand—­how utterly unworthy that best is of you?  You must understand that before—­before—­”

Again his voice went into silence; but she saw his eyes glow suddenly, hotly, in the gloom, and her heart gave a quick hard throb that caught her breath and held it for the moment suspended, waiting.

He went on after a second, mastering himself with obvious effort.  “What I am trying to say is this.  It’s easier—­or at least not impossible—­to forfeit what you’ve never had.  But afterwards—­afterwards—­” His hands closed tightly upon hers again; his voice sounded half-choked.  “Avery, I—­couldn’t let you go—­afterwards,” he said.

“But, my own Piers,” she whispered, “haven’t you said that there is no reason—­no earthly reason—­”

He broke in upon her almost fiercely.  “There is no reason—­none whatever—­I swear it!  You said yourself that the past was nothing to you.  You meant it, Avery.  Say you meant it!”

“But of course I meant it!” she told him.  “Only, Piers, there is no secret chamber in my life that you may not enter.  Perhaps some day, dear, when you come to realize that I am older than Jeanie, you will open all your doors to me!”