"Oh, is he?" she said in surprise. "He never told me!" "He wouldn't," said Piers. "He never talks about himself." He moved his hand slightly towards her. "Won't you sit down?" She glanced round. Victor was advancing behind her with a chair. Piers' eyes followed hers, and an instant later, turning back, she saw his quick frown. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers with the old imperious gesture, pointing to the door; and in a moment Victor, with a smile of peculiar gratification, put down the chair, trotted to it, opened it with a flourish, and was gone. Avery was left standing by the bed, slightly uncertain, wanting to smile, but wanting much more to cry. Piers' hand fell heavily. For a few seconds he lay perfectly still, with quickened breathing and drawn brows. Then his fingers patted the edge of the bed. "Sit down, sweetheart!" he said. It was Piers the boy-lover who spoke to her with those words, and, hearing them, something seemed to give way within her. It was as if a tight band round her heart had suddenly been torn asunder. She sank down on her knees beside the bed, and hid her face in his pillow. Tears--tears such as she had not shed since the beginning of their bitter estrangement--came welling up from her heart and would not be restrained. She sobbed her very soul out there beside him, subconsciously aware that in that hour his strength was greater than hers. Like an overwhelming torrent her distress came upon her, caught her tempestuously, swept her utterly from her own control, tossed her hither and thither, flung her at last into a place of deep, deep silence, where, still kneeling with head bowed low, she became conscious, strangely, intimately conscious, of the presence of God. It held her like a spell, that consciousness. She was as one who kneels before a vision. And even while she knelt there, lost in wonder, there came to her the throbbing gladness of faith renewed, the certainty that all would be well. Piers' hand was on her head, stroking, caressing, soothing. By no words did he attempt to comfort her. It was strange how little either of them felt the need of words. They were together upon holy ground, and in closer communion each with each than they had ever been before. Those tears of Avery's had washed away the barrier. Once, some time later, he whispered to her, "I never asked you to forgive me, Avery; but--" And that was the nearest he ever came to asking her forgiveness. For she stopped the words with her lips on his, and he never thought of uttering them again. EPILOGUE Christmas Eve and children's voices singing in the night! Two figures by the open window listening--a man and a woman, hand in hand in the dark! "Don't let them see us yet!" It was the woman's voice, low but with a deep thrill in it as of full and complete content. "I knew they were coming. Gracie whispered it to me this morning. But I wasn't to tell anyone. She was so afraid their father might forbid it."