His tone was mild, but there was a certain grimness about him notwithstanding. He looked at Piers with a faint smile in his eyes that had in it a quality of resolution that made itself felt. Piers stood still before him, half-chafing, half-subdued. "Tell me!" Crowther said again. "Oh, what's the good?" With a defiance that was oddly boyish Piers flung the question. "I see I've applied in the wrong quarter. Let me go!" "I will not," Crowther said. Deliberately he raised a hand and pointed to the chair from which Piers had just sprung. "Sit down again, sonny, and we'll talk." Piers swung round with an impatient gesture and went to the window. He threw it wide, and the distant roar of traffic filled the quiet room like the breaking of the sea. After a distinct pause Crowther followed him. They stood together gazing out over the dim wilderness of many roofs and chimneys to where the crude glare of an advertisement lit up the night sky. Piers was absolutely motionless, but there was a species of violence in his very stillness, as of a trapped animal preparing to make a wild rush for freedom. His attitude was feverishly tense. Suddenly and very quietly Crowther's hand came forth and linked itself in his arm. "What is it, lad?" he said. Piers made a jerky movement as if to avoid the touch, but the hand closed slowly and steadily upon him. He turned abruptly and met Crowther's eyes. "Crowther," he said, "I've behaved like a cur. I--broke that promise I made to you." He ground out the words savagely, between clenched teeth. Yet his look was defiant still. He held himself as a man defying shame. Crowther's eyes never varied. They looked straight back with a wide kindliness greater than compassion, wholly devoid of reproach. "All right, Piers," he said simply. Piers stared at him for a moment as one in blank amazement, then very strangely his face altered. The hardness went from it like a mask suddenly rent away. He made an inarticulate sound and turned from the open window. A second later he was sunk in Crowther's chair with his head in his hands, sobbing convulsively, painfully, uncontrollably, in an agony that tore like a living thing at the very foundations of his being. A smaller man than Crowther might have been at a loss to deal with such distress, but Crowther was ready. He had seen men in extremities of suffering before. He knew how to ease a crushing burden. He sat down on the arm of the chair and thrust a strong hand over Piers' shoulder, saying no word. Minutes passed ere by sheer violence that bitter anguish wore itself out at last. There came a long, piteous silence, then Piers' hand feeling blindly upwards. Crowther's grip encompassed it like a band of iron, but still for a space no word was spoken. Then haltingly Piers found his voice. "I'm sorry--beastly sorry--to have made such an ass of myself. You're jolly decent to me, Crowther."