"Who knows?" Crowther echoed, with a smile.
But he could not shake free from the chill foreboding that had descended upon him, and when Piers had gone he stood for a long time before his open window, wrestling with the dark phantom, trying to reason away a dread which he knew to be beyond all reasoning.
And all through the night that followed, those words of Piers' pursued him, marring his rest: "It's a beastly desert road I'm on, but I know it'll lead somewhere." And the high courage of his bearing! The royal confidence of his smile!
Ah, God! Those boys of the Empire, going forth so gallantly to the sacrifice!
CHAPTER VI
THE ENCOUNTER
Piers was right. When Avery left Stanbury Cliffs she went back to her old life at Rodding Vicarage.
Local gossip regarding her estrangement from her husband had practically exhausted itself some time before, and in any case it would have been swamped by the fevered anxiety that possessed the whole country during those momentous days.
She slipped back into her old niche almost as if she had never left it.
Mrs. Lorimer was ill with grief and overwork. It seemed only natural that
Avery should take up the burden of her care. Even the Vicar could say
nothing against it.
Avery sometimes wondered if Jeanie's death had pierced the armour of his self-complacence at any point. If it had, it was not perceptible; but she did fancy now and then that she detected in him a shade more of consideration for his wife than he had been wont to display. He condescended to bestow upon her a little more of his kindly patronage, and he was certainly less severe in his dealings with the children.