“No, no!  I couldn’t sleep.”

He reddened, hung his head.  Miss Derwent grew almost maternal.  This, she pointed out, was the natural result of nerves overstrained.  He must really use common sense.  Come now, would he promise?

“I will promise you anything!”

Olga glanced quickly at him from one side; Irene, on the other, looked away with a slight smile.

“No,” she said, “you shall promise Miss Hannaford.  She will have you under observation; whereas you might play tricks with me after I’m gone.  Olga, be strict with this young gentleman.  He is well-meaning, but he vacillates; at times he even tergiversates—­a shocking thing.”

There was laughter, but Piers suffered.  He felt humiliated.  Had he been alone with Miss Derwent, he might have asserted his manhood, and it would have been her turn to blush, to be confused.  He had a couple of years more than she.  The trouble was that he could not feel this superiority of age; she treated him like a schoolboy, and to himself he seemed one.  Even more than Irene’s, he avoided Olga’s look, and walked on shamefaced.

The remaining days, until Miss Derwent departed, were to him a mere blank of misery.  Impossible to open a book, and sleep came only with uttermost exhaustion.  How he passed the hours, he knew not.  Spying at windows, listening for voices, creeping hither and thither in torment of multiform ignominy, forcing speech when he longed to be silent, not daring to break silence when his heart seemed bursting with desire to utter itself—­a terrible time.  And Irene persevered in her elder-sister attitude; she was kindness itself, but never seemed to remark a strangeness in his look and manner.  Once he found courage to say that he would like to know Dr. Derwent; she replied that her father was a very busy man, but that no doubt some opportunity for their meeting would arise—­and that was all.  When the moment came for leave-taking, Piers tried to put all his soul into a look; but he failed, his eyes dropped, even as his tongue faltered.  And Irene Derwent was gone.

If, in the night that followed, a wish could have put an end to his existence, Piers would have died.  He saw no hope in living, and the burden seemed intolerable.  Love-anguish of one-and-twenty; we smile at it, but it is anguish all the same, and may break or mould a life.

CHAPTER VII

A week went by, and Piers was as far as ever from resuming his regular laborious life.  One day he spent in London.  His father’s solicitor had desired to see him, in the matter of the legacy; Piers received his money, and on the same day made over one hundred and fifty pounds to Daniel Otway, whom he met by appointment; in exchange, Daniel handed him a beautifully written I.O.U., which the younger brother would pocket only with protest.