“It’s only me,” said Piers.  “Surely you don’t mind me!”

It was naively expressed, so naively that she assayed to laugh in the midst of her woe.  “Oh, how you startled me!” was all she found to say.

“But surely you knew I was coming back!” he said.

The dogged note was in his voice.  It embarrassed her subtly.  Seeing his face through the deepening gloom, it seemed to her to be set in stern, unyielding lines.

She collected her scattered forces, and gently put his arms away from her.  “It was very kind of you, Mr. Evesham,” she said.  “But please remember that I’m not Jeanie!”

He made an impulsive movement of impatience.  “I never pretended you were,” he said gruffly.  “But you were crying, weren’t you?  Why were you crying?”

His tone was almost aggressive.  He seemed to be angry, but whether with her, himself, or a third person, Avery could not determine.

She decided that the situation demanded firmness, and proceeded to treat it accordingly.

“I was very foolish to cry,” she said.  “I have quite recovered now, so please forget it!  It was very kind of you to take my part a little while ago—­especially as you couldn’t have been really in sympathy with me.  Thank you very much!”

Again he made that gesture of imperious impatience.  “Oh, don’t be so beastly formal!  I can’t stand it.  If it had been any other man threatening you, I believe I should have killed him!”

He spoke with concentrated passion, but Avery was resolved not to be tragic.  She was striving to get back to wholesome commonplace.

“What a good thing it wasn’t!” she said.  “I shouldn’t have cared to have been responsible for that.  I had quite enough to answer for as it was.  I hope you will make peace with your grandfather as soon as possible.”

Piers laughed a savage laugh.  “He broke his whip over me.  Do you think I’m going to make peace with him for that?”

“Oh, Piers!” she exclaimed in distress.

It was out before she could check it—­that involuntary use of his Christian name for which it seemed to her afterwards he had been deliberately lying in wait.

He did not take immediate advantage of her slip, but she knew that he noticed it, registered it as it were for future reference.

“No,” he said moodily, after a pause.  “I don’t think the debt is on my side this time.  He had the satisfaction of flogging me with the whole Hunt looking on.”  There was sullen resentment in his tone, and then very suddenly to Avery’s amazement he began to laugh.  “It was worth it anyway, so we won’t cavil about the price.  How much longer are you going to bottle up that unfortunate brute?  Don’t you think it’s time he went home to his wife?”

Avery moved away from the shutter against which she had stood so long.  “I couldn’t let him be killed,” she said.  “You won’t understand, of course.  But I simply couldn’t.”