Finally, when the first bitterness had passed, they sat and talked together, and he found relief in telling her of the life he had lived in close companionship with the old man.

“We quarrelled a dozen times,” he said.  “But somehow we could neither of us keep it up.  I don’t know why.  We were violent enough at times.  There’s an Evesham devil somewhere in our ancestry, and he has a trick of cropping up still in moments of excitement.  You’ve met him more than once.  He’s a formidable monster, what?”

“I am not afraid of him,” said Avery, with her cheek against his black head.

He gave a shaky laugh.  “You’d fling a bucket of water over Satan himself!  I love you for not being afraid.  But I don’t know how you manage it, and that’s a fact.  Darling, I’m a selfish brute to wear you out like this.  Send me away when you can’t stand any more of me!”

“Would you go?” she said, softly stroking his cheek.

He caught her hand again and kissed it hotly, devouringly, in answer.  “But I mustn’t wear you out,” he said, a moment later, with an odd wistfulness.  “You mustn’t let me, Avery.”

She drew her hand gently away from the clinging of his lips.  “No, I won’t let you,” she said, in a tone he did not understand.

He clasped her to him.  “It’s because I worship you so,” he whispered passionately.  “There is no one else in the world but you.  I adore you!  I adore you!”

She closed her eyes from the fiery worship that looked forth from his.  “Piers,” she said, “wait, dear, wait!”

“Why should I wait?” he demanded almost fiercely.

“Because I ask you.  Because—­just now—­to be loved like that is more than I can bear.  Will you—­can you—­kiss me only, once, and go?”

He held her in his arms.  He gazed long and burningly upon her.  In the end he stopped and with reverence he kissed her.  “I am going, Avery,” he said.

She opened her eyes to him.  “God bless you, my own Piers!” she murmured softly, and laid her cheek for a moment against his sleeve ere he took his arm away.

As for Piers, he went from her as if he feared to trespass, and her heart smote her a little as she watched him go.  But she would not call him back.  She went instead to one of the great bay windows and leaned against the framework, gazing out.  He was very good to her in all things, but there were times when she felt solitude to be an absolute necessity.  His vitality, his fevered desire for her, wore upon her nerves.  His attitude towards her was not wholly natural.  It held something of a menace to her peace which disquieted her vaguely.  She had a feeling that though she knew herself to be all he wanted in the world, yet she did not succeed in fully satisfying him.  He seemed to be perpetually craving for something further, as though somewhere deep within him there burned a fiery thirst that nothing could ever slake.  Her lightest touch seemed to awake it, and there were moments when his unfettered passion made her afraid.