But he need not have been afraid. Piers' thoughts never strayed in that direction. If his six months in Crowther's society had brought him no other comfort, they had at least infused in him a saner outlook and steadier balance. Very little had ever passed between them on the subject of the tragedy that had thrown them together. After the first bitter outpouring of his soul, Piers had withdrawn himself with so obvious a desire for privacy that Crowther had never attempted to cross the boundary thus clearly defined. But his influence had made itself felt notwithstanding. It would have been impossible to have lived with the man for so long without imbibing some of that essential greatness of soul that was his main characteristic, and Piers was ever swift to feel the effect of atmosphere. He had come to look upon Crowther with a reverence that in a fashion affected his daily life. That which Crowther regarded as unworthy, he tossed aside himself without consideration. Crowther had not despised him at his worst, and he was determined that he would show himself to be not despicable. He was moreover under a solemn promise to return to Crowther when he found himself at liberty, and in very gratitude to the man he meant to keep that promise.
But, albeit he was braced for endurance, the long hours of waiting were very hard to bear. His sole comfort lay in the fact that Avery was making gradual progress in the right direction. It was a slow and difficult recovery, as Maxwell Wyndham had foretold, but it was continuous. Tudor assured him of this every day with a curt kindliness that had grown on him of late. It was his own fashion of showing a wholly involuntary sympathy of which he was secretly half-ashamed, and which he well knew Piers would have brooked in no other form. It established an odd sort of truce between them of which each was aware the while he sternly ignored it. They could never be friends. It was fundamentally impossible, but at least they had, if only temporarily, ceased to be enemies.
Little Mrs. Lorimer's sympathy was also of a half-ashamed type. She did not want to be sorry for Piers, but she could not wholly restrain her pity. The look in his eyes haunted her. Curiously it made her think of some splendid animal created for liberty, and fretting its heart out in utter, hopeless misery on a chain.
She longed with all her motherly heart to comfort him, and by the irony of circumstance it fell to her to deal the final blow to what was left of his hope. She wondered afterwards how she ever brought herself to the task, but it was in reality so forced upon her that she could not evade it. Avery, lying awake during the first hours of a still night, heard her husband's feet pacing up and down the terrace, and the mischief was done. She was thrown into painful agitation and wholly lost her sleep in consequence. When Mrs. Lorimer arrived about noon on the following day, she found her alarmingly weak, and the nurse in evident perplexity.
"I am sure there is something worrying her," the latter said to Mrs.
Lorimer. "I can't think what it is."
But directly Mrs. Lorimer was alone with Avery, the trouble came out. For she reached out fevered hands to her, saying, "Why, oh, why did you persuade me to come back here? I knew he would come if I did!"
Again the emergency impelled Mrs. Lorimer to a display of common-sense with which few would have credited her.
"Oh, do you mean Piers, dear?" she said. "But surely you are not afraid of him! He has been here all the time—ever since you were so ill."
"And I begged you not to send!" groaned Avery.
"My dear," said Mrs. Lorimer very gently, "it was his right to be here."