"I will do anything for your sake," he made passionate answer.
"Thank you," she said gently. "Then, Piers, I want you—please—to go back to Sir Beverley at once, and make it up."
He withdrew his hand sharply from hers, and sat up, turning his back upon her. "No!" he said harshly. "No!"
"Please, Piers!" she said very earnestly.
He locked his arms round his knees and sat in silence, staring moodily out to sea.
"Please, Piers!" she said again, and lightly touched his shoulder with her fingers.
He hunched the shoulder away from her with a gesture of boyish impatience, and then abruptly, as if realizing what he had done, he turned back to her, caught the hand, and pressed it to his lips.
"I'm a brute, dear. Forgive me! Of course—if you wish it—I'll go back. But as to making it up, well—" he gulped once or twice—"it doesn't rest only with me, you know."
"Oh, Piers," she said, "you are all he has. He couldn't be hard to you!"
Piers smiled a wry smile, and said nothing.