Olive, sternly judicial, stood regarding them in silence, for perhaps a score of seconds.  And then, still undismayed, she withdrew her forces in good order from the field.

“In that case,” she said, with the air of one closing a discussion, “there is nothing further to be said.  I suppose Mrs. Denys wishes to be Lady Evesham.  My father told me she was an adventuress.  I see he was right.”

She went away with this parting shot, stepping high and holding her head poised loftily—­an absurd parody of the Vicar in his most clerical moments.

Avery gave a little hysterical gasp of laughter as she passed out of sight.

Piers’ arm was about her in a moment.  He held her against his heart.  “What a charming child, what?” he murmured.

She hid her face on his shoulder.  “I think myself she was in the right,” she said, still half laughing.  “Piers, you must go.”

“In a moment.  Let me hear from your own dear lips first that you are not—­not angry?” He spoke the words softly into her ear.  There was only tenderness in the holding of his arms.

“I am not,” she whispered back.

“Nor sorry?” urged Piers.

She turned her face a little towards him.  “No, dear, not a bit sorry; glad!”

He held her more closely but with reverence.  “Avery, you don’t—­love me, do you?”

“Of course I do!” she said.

“There can’t be any ‘of course’ about it,” he declared almost fiercely.  “I’ve been a positive brute to you.  Avery—­Avery, I’ll never be a brute to you again.”

And there he stopped, for her arms were suddenly about his neck, her lips raised in utter surrender to his.

“Oh, Piers,” she said in a voice that thrilled him through and through, “do you think I would have less of your love—­even if it hurts me?  It is the greatest thing that has ever come into my life.”

He held her head between his hands and looked into her eyes of perfect trust.  “Avery!  Avery!” he said.

“I mean it!” she told him earnestly.  “I have been drawing nearer to you all the while—­in spite of myself—­though I tried so hard to hold back.  Piers, my past life is a dream, and this—­this is the awaking.  You asked me—­a long while ago—­if the past mattered.  I couldn’t answer you then.  I was still half-asleep.  But now—­now you have worked the miracle—­my heart is awake, dear, and I will answer you.  The past is nothing to you or me.  It matters—­not—­one—­jot!”

Her words throbbed into the silence of his kiss.  He held her long and closely.  Once—­twice—­he tried to speak to her and failed.  In the end he gave himself up mutely to the rapture of her arms.  But his own wild passion had sunk below the surface.  He sought no more than she offered.

“Say good-bye to me now!” she whispered at length; and he kissed her again closely, lingeringly, and let her go.

She stood in the doorway as he passed into the night, and his last sight of her was thus, silhouetted against the darkness, a tall, gracious figure, bending forward to discern him in the dimness.