The struggle was over; so suddenly, so amazingly, that Crowther stood dumbfounded. He had girded himself to wrestle with a giant, but there was nothing formidable about the boy who sat on the edge of his bed and laughed at him with easy ridicule.
"Why don't you switch on the light," he jeered, "and have a good look round for the devil? He was here a minute ago. What? Don't you believe in devils? That's heresy. All good parsons—" He got up suddenly and went to the switch. In a second the room was flooded with light. He returned to Crowther with the full flare on his face, and the only expression it wore was one of careless friendliness. He held out his hand. "Good-night, dear old fellow! Say your prayers and go to bed! And you needn't have any more nightmares on my account. I'm going to turn in myself directly."
There was no mistaking his sincerity, or the completeness of his surrender. Crowther could but take the extended hand, and, in silent astonishment, treat the incident as closed.
He even wondered as he went away if he had not possibly exaggerated the whole matter, though at the heart of him he knew that this was only what Piers himself desired him to believe. He could not but feel convinced, however, that the danger was past for the time at least. In his own inimitable fashion Piers had succeeded in reassuring him. He was fully satisfied that the boy would keep his word, for his faith in him was absolute. But he felt the victory that was his to be a baffling one. He had conquered merely because Piers of his own volition had ceased to resist. He did not understand that sudden submission. Like Sir Beverley, he was puzzled by it. There was about it a mysterious quality that eluded his understanding. He would have given a good deal for a glimpse of the motive that lay behind.
But he had to go without it. Piers was in no expansive mood. Perhaps he might have found it difficult to explain himself even had he so desired.
Whatever the motive that had urged him, it urged him no longer, or it had been diverted into a side-channel. For almost as soon as he was alone, he threw himself down and scribbled a careless line to Ina Rose, advising her to accompany her father to Mentone, and adding that he believed she would not be bored there.
When he had despatched Victor with the letter, he flung his window wide and leaned out of it with his eyes wide opened on the darkness, and on his lips that smile that was not good to see.
CHAPTER XXVI
SUBSTANCE
It was a blustering spring day, and Avery, caught in a sudden storm of driving sleet, stood up against the railings of the doctor's house, sheltering as best she might. She was holding her umbrella well in the teeth of the gale, and trying to protect an armful of purchases as well.