He went on after a second, mastering himself with obvious effort. "What I am trying to say is this. It's easier—or at least not impossible—to forfeit what you've never had. But afterwards—afterwards—" His hands closed tightly upon hers again; his voice sounded half-choked. "Avery, I—couldn't let you go—afterwards," he said.
"But, my own Piers," she whispered, "haven't you said that there is no reason—no earthly reason—"
He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "There is no reason—none whatever—I swear it! You said yourself that the past was nothing to you. You meant it, Avery. Say you meant it!"
"But of course I meant it!" she told him. "Only, Piers, there is no secret chamber in my life that you may not enter. Perhaps some day, dear, when you come to realize that I am older than Jeanie, you will open all your doors to me!"
There was pleading in her voice, notwithstanding its note of banter; but she did not stay to plead. With the whispered words she stooped and softly kissed him. Then ere he could detain her longer she gently released herself and was gone.
He saw her light figure flit ghost-like across the dim stretch of grass and vanish into the shadows. And he started to his feet as if he would follow or call her back. But he did neither. He only stood swaying on his feet with a face of straining impotence—as of a prisoner wrestling vainly with his iron bars—until she had gone wholly from his sight. And then with a stifled groan he dropped down again into his chair and covered his face.
He had paid a heavy price to enter the garden of his desire; but already he had begun to realize that the fruit he gathered there was Dead Sea Fruit.
CHAPTER II
THAT WHICH IS HOLY
No bells had rung at the young Squire's wedding. It had been conducted with a privacy which Miss Whalley described as "almost indecent." But there was no privacy about his return, and Miss Whalley was shocked afresh at the brazen heartlessness of it after his recent bereavement. For Sir Piers and his wife motored home at the end of July through a village decked with flags and bunting and under a triumphant arch that made Piers' little two-seater seem absurdly insignificant; while the bells in the church-tower clanged the noisiest welcome they could compass, and Gracie—home for the holidays—mustered the school-children to cheer their hardest as the happy couple passed the schoolhouse gate.