With July came heat, intense, oppressive, airless; and Jeanie flagged again.  A copper-coloured mist rose every morning over the sea, blotting out the sky-line, veiling the passing ships.  Strange voices called through the fog, sirens hooted to one another persistently.

“They are like people who have lost each other,” Jeanie said once, and the simile haunted Avery’s imagination.

And then one sunny day a pleasure-steamer passed quite near the shore with a band on board.  They were playing The Little Grey Home in the West, and very oddly Jeanie’s eyes filled with sudden tears.

Avery did not take any notice for a few moments, but as the strains died-away over the glassy water, she leaned towards the child.

“My darling, what is it?” she whispered tenderly.

Jeanie’s hand found its way into hers.  “Oh, don’t you ever want Piers?” she murmured wistfully.  “I do!”

It was the first time she had spoken his name to Avery since they had left him alone nearly a year before, and almost as soon as she had uttered it she made swift apology.

“Please forgive me, dear Avery!  It just slipped out.”

“My dear!” Avery said, and kissed her.

There fell a long silence between them.  Avery’s eyes were on the thick heat-haze that obscured the sky-line.  In her brain there sounded again those words that Maxwell Wyndham had spoken so short a time before.  “Give her everything she wants!  It’s all you can do for her now.”

But behind those words was something that shrank and quivered like a frightened child.  Could she give her this one thing?  Could she?  Could she?

It would mean the tearing open of a wound that was scarcely closed.  It would mean a calling to life of a bitterness that was hardly past.  It would mean—­it would mean—­

“Avery darling!” Softly Jeanie’s voice broke through her agitated thoughts.

Avery turned and looked at her,—­the frail, sweet face with its shining eyes of love.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” whispered Jeanie.  “Don’t think any more about it!”

“Do you want him so dreadfully?” Avery said.

Jeanie’s eyes were full of tears again.  She tried to answer, but her lips quivered.  She turned her face aside, and was silent.

The day waxed hotter, became almost insupportable.  In the afternoon Jeanie was attacked by breathlessness and coughing, both painful to witness.  She could find no rest or comfort, and Avery was in momentary dread of a return of the hemorrhage.

It did not return, but when evening came at length and with it the blessed coolness of approaching night, Jeanie was so exhausted as to be unable to speak above a whisper.  She lay white and still, scarcely conscious, only her difficult breathing testifying to the fluttering life that had ebbed so low.

The nurse’s face was very grave as she came on duty, but after an interval of steady watching, during which the wind blew in with rising freshness from the sea, she turned to Avery, saying, “I think she will revive.”