"Oh, Piers," she said in a voice that thrilled him through and through, "do you think I would have less of your love—even if it hurts me? It is the greatest thing that has ever come into my life."
He held her head between his hands and looked into her eyes of perfect trust. "Avery! Avery!" he said.
"I mean it!" she told him earnestly. "I have been drawing nearer to you all the while—in spite of myself—though I tried so hard to hold back. Piers, my past life is a dream, and this—this is the awaking. You asked me—a long while ago—if the past mattered. I couldn't answer you then. I was still half-asleep. But now—now you have worked the miracle—my heart is awake, dear, and I will answer you. The past is nothing to you or me. It matters—not—one—jot!"
Her words throbbed into the silence of his kiss. He held her long and closely. Once—twice—he tried to speak to her and failed. In the end he gave himself up mutely to the rapture of her arms. But his own wild passion had sunk below the surface. He sought no more than she offered.
"Say good-bye to me now!" she whispered at length; and he kissed her again closely, lingeringly, and let her go.
She stood in the doorway as he passed into the night, and his last sight of her was thus, silhouetted against the darkness, a tall, gracious figure, bending forward to discern him in the dimness.
He went back to his lonely home, back to the echoing emptiness, the listening dark. He entered again the great hall where Sir Beverley had been wont to sit and wait for him.
Victor was on the watch. He glided apologetically forward with shining, observant eyes upon his young master's weary face.
"Monsieur Pierre!" he said insinuatingly.
Piers looked at him heavily. "Well?"