The fire blazed cheerily, flinging ruddy gleams upon the shining suits of armour, roaring up the chimney in a sheet of flame. Sir Beverley sat facing the stairs, the grim lines hardened to implacability about his mouth, his eyes fixed in a stare that had in it something brutal. He was seeing again that slim, straight figure of womanhood standing in his path, with arms outstretched, and white, determined face upraised, barring the way. "Curse her!" he growled. "Curse 'em all!" The vision grew before his gaze of hate; and now she was no longer standing between him and a mere, defenceless animal. But there, on his own stairs, erect and fearless, she withstood him, while behind her, descending with a laugh on his lips and worship in his eyes, came Piers. The stone-grey eyes became suffused; for a few, whirling moments of bewilderment and fury, they saw all things red. Then, gradually, the mist cleared, and the old man dropped back in a lounging posture with an ugly sound in his throat that was like a snarl. Doubtless that was her game; doubtless--doubtless! He had always known that a day would come when something of the kind would happen. Piers was young, wealthy, handsome,--a catch for any woman; but--fiercely he swore it--he should fall a prey to no schemer. When he married--as marry eventually he must--he should make an alliance of which any man might be proud. The Evesham blood should mix with none but the highest. In Piers he would see the father's false step counteracted. He thanked Heaven that he had never been able to detect in the boy any trace of the piece of cheap prettiness that had given him birth. He might have been his own son, son of the woman who had been the rapture and the ruin of his life. There were times when Sir Beverley almost wished he had been, albeit in the bitterness of his soul he had never had any love for the child she had borne him. He had never wanted to love Piers either, but somehow the matter had not rested with him. From the arms of Victor, Piers had always yearned to his grandfather, wailing lustily till he found himself held to the hard old heart that had nought but harshness and intolerance for all the world beside. He had as it were taken that unwilling heart by storm, claiming it as his right before he was out of his cradle. And later the attachment between them had grown and thriven, for Piers had never relinquished the ground he had won in babyhood. By sheer arrogance of possession he had held his own till the impetuous ardour of his affection and the utter fearlessness on which it was founded had made of him the cherished idol of the heart which had tried to shut him out. Sir Beverley gloried in the boy though he still flattered himself that no one suspected the fact, and still believed that his rule was a rule of stern discipline under which Piers might chafe but against which he would never openly revolt.