Softly he approached, and Mrs. Lorimer, rising silently from a chair by the bedside, made room for him.  He sat down, sinking as it were into a great abyss of silence, listening tensely, but hearing not so much as a breath.

The doctor took up his stand at the foot of the bed.  In the adjoining room sat Lennox Tudor, watching ceaselessly, expectantly, it seemed to Piers.  Behind him moved a nurse, noiselessly intent upon polishing something that flashed like silver every time it caught his eye.

Suddenly out of the silence there came a voice.  “If I go down to hell,—­Thou art there also.  If I take the wings of the morning—­the wings of the morning—­” There came a pause, the difficult pause of uncertainty—­“the wings of the morning—­” murmured the voice again.

Piers leaned upon the pillow.  “Avery!” he said.

She turned as if some magic moved her.  Her hands came out to him, piteously weak and trembling.  “Piers,—­my darling!” she said.

He gathered the poor nerveless hands into a tight clasp, kissing them passionately.  He forgot the silent watcher at the foot of the bed, forgot little Mrs. Lorimer hovering in the shadows, and Tudor waiting with the nurse behind him.  They all slipped into nothingness, and Avery—­his wife—­alone remained in a world that was very dark.

Her voice came to him in a weak whisper.  “Oh, Piers, I’ve been—­wanting you so!”

“My own darling!” he whispered back.  “I will never leave you again!”

“Oh yes, you will!” she answered drearily.  “You always say that, but you are always gone in the morning.  It’s only a dream—­only a dream!”

He slipped his arms beneath her and drew her to his breast.  “It is not a dream, Avery,” he told her very earnestly.  “I am here in the flesh.  I am holding you.”

“I know,” she said.  “It’s always so.”

The weary conviction of her tone smote cold to his heart.  He gathered her closer still.  He pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Avery, can’t you feel me?” he said.

Her head sank against his shoulder.  “Yes—­yes,” she said.  “But you have always done that.”

“Done what, darling?”

“Imposed your will on mine—­made me feel you.”  Her voice quivered; she began to cry a little, weakly, like a tired child.  “Do you remember—­what you said—­about—­about—­the ticket of leave?” she said.  “You leave your dungeon—­my poor Piers.  But you have to go back again—­when the leave has expired.  And I—­I am left alone.”

The tears were running down her face.  He wiped them tenderly away.

“My dearest, if you want me—­if you need me,—­I will stay,” he said.

“But you can’t,” she said hopelessly.  “Even to-night—­even to-night—­I thought you were never coming.  And I went at last to look for you—­behind your iron bars.  But, oh, Piers, the agony of it!  And I couldn’t reach you after all, though I tried so hard—­so hard.”