So she could not call him back, and for a time she even shrank from asking news of him.  Then one day she met Victor sorrowfully exercising Caesar along the confines of the Park, and stopped him when with a melancholy salute he would have passed her by.

His eyes brightened a little at her action, but he volunteered no information and she decided later that he had obeyed orders in adopting this attitude.  With an effort she questioned him.  How was it he was not with his master?

He spread out his hands in mournful protest. Mais Monsieur Pierre had not required his services depuis longtemps. He was become very independent.  But yes, he was engaged upon war work.  In the Army?  But yes again.  Did not Madame know?  And then he became vague and sentimental, bemoaning his own age and consequent inactivity, and finally went away with brimming eyes and the dubiously expressed hope that le bon Dieu would fight on the right side.

It was all wholly unsatisfactory, and Avery yearned to know more.  But the pain of investigating further held her back.  If that growing conviction of hers were indeed the truth, she shrank morbidly from seeming to make any advance.  No one seemed to know definitely what had become of Piers.  She could not bring herself to apply to outsiders for information, and there was no one to take up her case and make enquiries on her behalf.  Lennox Tudor had volunteered for service in the Medical Corps and had been accepted.  She did not so much as know where he was, though he was declared by Miss Whalley, who knew most things, to be on Salisbury Plain.  She sometimes wondered with wry humour if Miss Whalley could have enlightened her as to her husband’s whereabouts; but that lady’s attitude towards her was invariably expressive of such icy disapproval that she never ventured to put the wonder into words.

And then one afternoon of brilliant autumn she was shopping with Gracie in Wardenhurst, and came face to face with Ina Guyes.

Dick Guyes had gone into the Artillery, and Ina had returned to her father’s house.  She and Avery had not met since Ina’s wedding day more than a year before; but their recognition was mutual and instant.

There was a moment of hesitation on both sides, a difficult moment of intangible reluctance; then Avery held out her hand.

“How do you do?” she said.

Ina took the hand perfunctorily between her fingers and at once relinquished it.  She was looking remarkably handsome, Avery thought; but her smile was not conspicuously amiable, and her eyes held something that was very nearly akin to condemnation.

“Quite well, thanks,” she said, with her off-hand air of arrogance which had become much more marked since her marriage.  “You all right?”

Avery felt herself grow reticent and chilly as she made reply.  The girl’s eyes of scornful enquiry made her stiffen instinctively.  She was prepared to bow and pass on, but for some reason Ina was minded to linger.