He put his hand on her shoulder.  “My dear, of course he wants to see you; but there will be no keeping him quiet when he does.  He isn’t equal to it.  He is putting up the biggest fight of his life, and he wants all his strength for it.  But you can do your part now if you will.  You can go down to Rodding Abbey and make ready to receive him there.  And you can send Victor to help me with him as soon as he is able to leave the hospital.  He and I will bring him down to you.  And if you will be there just in the ordinary way, I think there will be less risk of excitement.  Will you do this, Avery?  Is it asking too much of you?”

His grey eyes looked straight down into hers with the wide friendliness that was as the open gateway to his soul, and some of the bitter strain of the past few weeks passed from her own as she looked back.

“Nothing would be too much,” she said.  “I would do anything—­anything.  But if he should want me—­and I were not at hand?  If—­if—­he should—­die—­” Her voice sank.

Crowther’s hand pressed upon her.  “He is not going to die,” he said stoutly.  “He doesn’t mean to die.  But he will probably have to go slow for the rest of his life.  That is where you will be able to help him.  His only chance lies in patience.  You must teach him to be patient.”

Her lips quivered in a smile.  “Piers!” she said.  “Can you picture it?”

“Yes, I can.  Because I know that only patience can have brought him to where he is at present.  They say it is nothing short of a miracle, and I believe it.  God often works His miracles that way.  And I always knew that Piers was great.”

Crowther’s slow smile appeared, transforming his whole face.  He held Avery’s hand for a little, and let it go.

“So you will do this, will you?” he said.  “I think the boy would be just about pleased to find you there.  And you can depend on me to bring him down to you as soon as he is able to bear it.”

“You are very good,” Avery said.  “Yes, I will go.”

But, as Crowther knew, in going she accepted the hardest part; and the weeks that she then spent at Rodding Abbey waiting, waiting with a sick anxiety, left upon her a mark which no time could ever erase.

When Crowther’s message came to her at last, she was almost too crushed to believe.  Everything was in readiness, had been in readiness for weeks.  She had prepared in fevered haste, telling herself that any day might bring him.  But day had followed day, and the news had always been depressing, first of weakness, fits of pain, terrible collapses, and again difficult recoveries.  Not once had she been told that any ground had been gained.

And so when one day a telegram reached her earlier than usual, she hardly dared to open it, so little did she anticipate that the news could be good.

And even when the words stared her in the face:  “Bringing Piers this afternoon, Crowther,” she could not for awhile believe them, and sought instinctively to read into them some sinister meaning.