Piers’ dark eyes gleamed.  “Do you know what I would have done if I had been in his place?” he said.  “I would have gone after her and brought her back—­even if I’d killed her afterwards.”

His voice vibrated on a deep note of savagery.  He poured out a glass of wine with a hand that shook.

Avery said nothing, but through the silence she was conscious of the hard throbbing of her heart.  There was something implacable, something almost cruel, about Piers at that moment.  She felt as if he had bruised her without knowing it.

And then in his sudden, bewildering way he left his chair and came to her, stooped boyishly over her.  “My darling, you’re so awfully pale to-night.  Have some wine—­to please me!”

She leaned her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes.  “I am a little tired, dear; but I don’t want any wine.  I shall be all right in the morning.”

He laid his cheek against her forehead.  “I want you to drink a toast with me.  Won’t you?”

“We won’t drink to each other,” she protested, faintly smiling.  “It’s too like drinking to ourselves.”

“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he declared.  “But we won’t toast ourselves.  We’ll drink to the future, Avery, and—­” he lowered his voice—­“and all it contains.  What?”

Her eyes opened quickly, but she did not move.  “Why do you say that?”

“What?” he said again very softly.

She was silent.

He reached a hand for his own glass.  “Drink with me, sweetheart!” he said persuasively.

She suffered him to put it to her lips and drank submissively.  But in a moment she put up a restraining hand.  “You finish it!” she said, and pushed it gently towards him.

He took it and held it high.  The light gleamed crimson in the wine; it glowed like liquid fire.  A moment he held it so, then without a word he carried it to his lips and drained it.

A second later there came the sound of splintering glass, and Avery, turning in her chair, discovered that he had flung it over his shoulder.

She gazed at him in amazement astonished by his action.  “Piers!”

But something in his face checked her.  “No one will ever drink out of that glass again,” he said.  “Are you ready?  Shall we go in the garden for a breath of air?”

She went with him, but on the terrace outside he stopped impulsively.  “Avery darling, I don’t mean to be a selfish beast; but I’ve got to prowl for a bit.  Would you rather go to bed?”

His arm was round her; she leaned against him half-laughing.  “Do you know, dear, that bedroom frightens me with its magnificence!  Don’t prowl too long!”

He bent to her swiftly.  “Avery!  Do you want me?”

“Just to scare away the bogies,” she made answer, with a lightness that scarcely veiled a deeper feeling.  “And when you’ve done that—­quite thoroughly—­perhaps—­” She stopped.