Avery’s lips were quivering.  She went on with a visible effort.  “He died a violent death.  He was killed in a quarrel with another man.  I was told it was an accident, but it didn’t seem like that to me.  And—­it had an effect on me.  It made me hard—­made me bitter.”

“You, Avery!” Tudor’s voice was gravely incredulous.

She turned her face to the fire, and he saw on her lashes the gleam of tears.  “I’ve never told anyone that; but it’s the truth.  It seemed to me that life was cruel, mainly because of men’s vices.  And women were created only to go under.  It was a horrid sort of feeling to have, but it has never wholly left me.  I don’t think I could ever face marriage a second time.”

“Oh yes, you could,” said Tudor, quietly, “if you loved the man.”

She shook her head.  “I am too old to fall in love.  I have somehow missed the romance of life.  I know what it is, but it will never come to me now.”

“And you won’t marry without?” he said.

“No.”

There fell a pause; then, still with the utmost quietness, he relinquished her hand.  “I think you are right,” he said.  “Marriage without love on both sides is a ship without ballast.  Yet, I can’t help thinking that you are mistaken in your idea that you have lost the capacity for that form of love.  You may know what it is.  Most women do.  But I wonder if you have ever really felt it.”

“Not to the full,” Avery answered, her voice very low.  “Then I was too young.  Mine was just a child’s rapture and it was simply extinguished when I came to know the kind of burden I had to bear.  It all faded so quickly, and the reality was so terribly grim.  Now—­now I look on the world with experienced eyes.  I am too old.”

“You think experience destroys romance?” said Tudor.

She looked at him.  “Don’t you?”

“No,” he said.  “If it did, I do not think you would be afraid to marry me.  Don’t think I am trying to persuade you!  I am not.  But are you sure that in refusing me you are not sacrificing substance to shadow?”

“I don’t quite understand you,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders slightly.  “I can’t be more explicit.  No doubt you will follow your own instincts.  But allow me to say that I don’t think you are the sort of woman to go through life unmated; and though I may not be romantic, I am sound.  I think I could give you a certain measure of happiness.  But the choice is yours.  I can only bow to your decision.”

There was a certain dignity in his speech that gave it weight.  Avery listened in silence, and into silence the words passed.

Several seconds slipped away, then without effort Tudor came back to everyday things.  “Sit down, won’t you?  Your tea is getting cold.”

Avery sat down, and he handed it to her, and after a moment turned aside to the table.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I have just come back from the Vicarage.”