He took up the envelope. It was addressed in a man's square, firm writing to "Piers Evesham, Esq., Rodding Abbey."
"Someone who doesn't know," murmured Piers, and slit it open with a sense of relief. Some of the letters of condolence that he had received had been as salt rubbed into a wound.
He took out the letter and glanced at the signature: "Edmund Crowther!"
Suddenly a veil seemed to be drawn across his eyes. He looked up with a sharp, startled movement, and through a floating mist he saw his grandmother's baffling smile from the canvas on the wall. The blood was singing in his ears. He clenched his hands involuntarily. Crowther! He had forgotten Crowther! And Crowther knew—how much?
But he had Crowther's promise of secrecy, so—after all—what had he to fear? Nothing—nothing! Yet he felt as if a devil were laughing somewhere in the room. They had caught him, they had caught him, there at the very gates of deliverance. They were dragging him back to his place of torment. He could hear the clanking of the chains which he had so nearly burst asunder, could feel them coiling cold about his heart. For he also was bound by a promise, the keeping of which meant utter destruction to all he held good in life.
And not that alone. It meant the rending in pieces of that which was holy, the trampling into the earth of that sacred gift which had only now been bestowed upon him. It meant the breaking of a woman's heart—that of the only woman in the world, the woman he worshipped, body and soul, the woman who in spite of herself had come to love him also.
He flung up his arms with a wild gesture. The torment was more than he could bear.
"No!" he cried. "No!" And it was as if he cried out of the midst of a burning, fiery furnace. "I'm damned—I'm damned if I will!"
"Monsieur Pierre! Monsieur Pierre!" It was Victor's voice beside him, full of anxious remonstrance.
He looked round with dazed eyes. His arms fell to his sides. "All right, my good Victor; I'm not mad," he said. "Don't be scared! Did you ever hear of a chap called Damocles? He's an ancestor of mine, and history has a funny fashion of repeating itself. But there'll be a difference this time all the same. He couldn't eat his dinner for fear of a naked sword falling on his head. But I'm going to eat mine—whatever happens; and enjoy it too."