"Good-bye till you send for me. Piers."
"That's all," he said. "Thanks awfully. She'll understand that. And now—I say, you're not going to cry any more, are you?" He shook his head at her with a laugh in his eyes. "You really mustn't. You're much too tender-hearted. I say, it was a pity about the baby, what? I thought the baby might have made a difference. But it'll be all the same presently. She's wanting me really. I've known that ever since that night—you know—ever since I held her in my arms."
He spoke with absolute simplicity. She had never liked him better than at that moment. His boyishness had utterly disarmed her, and not till later did she realize how completely he had masked his soul therewith.
She parted with him with a full heart, and had a strictly private little cry on his account ere she returned to Avery. Poor lad! Poor lad! And when he wasn't smiling, he did look so ill!
The same thought struck Crowther a few hours later as Piers sat with him in his room, and devoted himself with considerable adroitness to making his fire burn through as quickly as possible, the while he briefly informed him that his wife was considered practically out of danger and had no further use for him for the present.
Crowther's heart sank at the news though he gave no sign of dismay.
"What do you think of doing, sonny?" he asked, after a moment.
"I? Why, what is there for me to do?" Piers glanced round momentarily. "I wonder what you'd do, Crowther," he said, with a smile that was scarcely gay.
Crowther came to his side, and stood there massively, while he filled his pipe. "Piers," he said, "I presume she knows all there is to know of that bad business?"
Piers rammed the poker a little deeper into the fire and said nothing.