The Bars of Iron by Ethel May Dell (spicy books to read .TXT) 📕

said Avery. "I think the idea is excellent. I have been feeling troubled about Jeanie nearly all the winter. This last cold has worn her out terribly."
Tudor nodded. "Yes."
He drank his tea thoughtfully, and then spoke again. "I sounded her this afternoon. The left lung is not in a healthy condition. She will need all the attention you can give her if she is going to throw off the mischief. It has not gone very far at present, but--to be frank with you--I am very far from satisfied that she can muster the strength." He got up and began to pace the room. "I have not said this plainly to anyone else. I don't want to frighten Mrs. Lorimer before I need. The poor soul has enough to bear without this added. Possibly the change will work wonders. Possibly she will pull round. Children have marvellous recuperative powers. But I have seen this sort of thing a good many times before, and--" he came back to the hearth--"it doesn't make me happy."
"I am glad you have told me," Avery said.
"I had to tell you. I believe you more than half suspected it." Tudor spoke restlessly; his thoughts were evidently not of his companion at that moment. "There are of course a good many points in her favour. She is a good, obedient child with a placid temperament. And the summer is before us. We shall have to work hard this summer, Mrs. Denys." He smiled at her abruptly. "It is like building a sea-wall when the tide is out. We've got to make it as strong as possible before the tide comes back."
"You may rely on me to do my very best," Avery said earnestly.
He nodded. "Thank you. I know I may. I always do. Hence my confidence in you. May I give you some more tea?"
He quitted the subject as suddenly as he had embarked upon it. There was something very friendly in his treatment of her. She knew with unquestioning intuition that for the future he would keep strictly within the bounds of friendship unless he had her permission to pass beyond them. And it was this knowledge that emboldened her at parting to say, with her hand in his: "You are very, very good to me. I would like to thank you if I could."
He pressed her hand with the kindness of an old friend. "No, don't thank me!" he said, smiling at her in a way that somehow went to her heart. "I shall always be at your service. But I'd rather you took it as a matter of course. I feel more comfortable that way."
Avery left him at length and trudged home through the mud with a curious feeling of uncertainty in her soul. It was as though she had been vouchsafed a far glimpse of destiny which had been too fleeting for her comprehension.


CHAPTER XXVII
SHADOW

The preparations that must inevitably precede a departure for an indefinite length of time kept Avery from dwelling overmuch on what had passed on that gusty afternoon when she had taken shelter in the doctor's house.
Whether or not she believed the rumour concerning Piers she scarcely asked herself. For some reason into which she did not enter she was firmly resolved to exclude him from her mind, and she welcomed the many occupations that kept her thoughts engrossed. No word from him had reached her since that daring letter written nearly three months before, just after his departure. It seemed that he had accepted her answer just as she had meant him to accept it, and that he had nothing more to say. So at least she viewed the matter, not suffering any inward question to arise.
She saw Lennox Tudor several times before the last day arrived. He did not seek her out. It simply came about in the ordinary course of things. He was plainly determined that neither in public nor private should there be any secret sense of embarrassment between them. And for this also she was grateful, liking him for his blunt consideration for her better than she had ever liked him before.
It was on the evening of the day preceding her departure with Jeanie that she ran down in the dusk to the post at the end of the lane with a letter. Her Australian friend had written to propose a visit, and she had been obliged to put him off.
There was a bitter wind blowing, but she hastened along hatless, with a cloak thrown round her shoulders. Past the church with its sheltering yew-trees she ran, intent only upon executing her errand in as short a time as possible.
Her hair blew loose about her face, and before she reached her goal she was ashamed of her untidiness, but it was not worth while to return for a hat, and she pressed on with a girl's impetuosity, hoping that she would meet no one.
The hope was not to be fulfilled. She reached the box and deposited her letter therein, but as she turned from doing so, there came the fall of a horse's hoofs along the road at the end of the lane.
She caught the sound, and was pierced by a sudden, quite unaccountable suspicion. Swiftly she gathered her cloak more securely about her, and hastened away.
Instantly it seemed to her that the hoof-beats quickened. The lane was steep, and she realized in a moment that if the rider turned up in her wake, she must very speedily be overtaken. She slackened her pace therefore, and walked on more quietly, straining her ears to listen, not venturing to look back.
Round the corner came the advancing animal at a brisk trot. She had known in her heart that it would be so. She had known from the first moment of hearing those hoof-beats, that Fate, strong and relentless, was on her track.
How she had known it she could not have said, but the wild clamour of her heart stifled any reasoning that she might have tried to form. Her breath came and went like the breath of a hunted creature. She could not hurry because of the trembling of her knees. Every instinct was urging her to flee, but she lacked the strength. She drew instead nearer to the wall, hoping against hope that in the gathering darkness he would pass her by.
Nearer and nearer came the hammering hoofs. She could hear the horse's sharp breathing, the creak of leather. And then suddenly she found she could go no further. She stopped and leaned against the wall.
She saw the animal pulled suddenly in, and knew that she was caught. With a great effort she lifted a smiling face, and simulated surprise.
"You! How do you do?"
"You knew it was me," said Piers rather curtly.
He dropped from the saddle with the easy grace that always marked his movements, and came to her, leaving the animal free.
"Why were you running away from me?" he said. "Did you want to cut me?"
He must have felt the trembling of her hand, for all in a moment his manner changed. His fingers closed upon hers with warm assurance. He suddenly laughed into her face.
"Don't answer either of those questions!" he said. "Didn't you expect to see me? We came home yesterday, thank the gods! I'm deadly sick of being away."
"Haven't you enjoyed yourself?" Avery managed to ask.
He laughed again somewhat grimly. "I wasn't out for enjoyment. I've been--amusing myself more or less. But that's not the same thing, is it? I should have drowned myself if I'd stayed out there much longer."
"Don't talk nonsense!" said Avery.
She spoke with a touch of sharpness. Her agitation had passed leaving her vexed with herself and with him.
He received the admonition with a grimace. "Have you heard about my engagement yet?" he enquired irrelevantly, after a moment.
Avery looked at him very steadily through the falling dusk. She had a feeling that he was trying to hoodwink her by some means not wholly praiseworthy.
"Are you engaged?" she asked him, point-blank.
He made a careless gesture. "Everybody says so."
"Are you engaged?" Avery repeated with resolution.
She freed her hand as she uttered the question the second time. She was standing up very straight against the churchyard wall sternly determined to check all trifling.
Piers straightened himself also. From the pride of his attitude she thought that he was about to take offence, but his voice held none as he made reply.
"I am not."
She felt as if some constriction at her heart, of which till that moment she had scarcely been aware, had suddenly slackened. She drew a long, deep breath.
"Sorry, what?" suggested Piers.
He began to tap a careless tattoo with his whip on the toe of his boot. He did not appear to be regarding her very closely. Yet she did not feel at her ease. That sudden sense as of strain relaxed had left her curiously unsteady.
She ignored his question and asked another. "Why is everybody saying that you are engaged?"
He lifted his shoulders. "Because everybody is more or less of a gossiping fool, I should say. Still," he threw up his head with a laugh, "notions of that sort have their uses. My grandfather for instance is firmly of the opinion that I have come home to be married. I didn't undeceive him."
"You let him believe--what wasn't true?" said Avery slowly.
He looked straight at her, with his head flung back. "I did. It suited my purpose. I wanted to get home. He thought it was because the Roses had returned to Wardenhurst. I let him think so. It certainly was deadly without them."
It was then that Avery turned and began quietly to walk on up the hill. He linked his arm in Pompey's bridle, and walked beside her.
She spoke after a few moments with something of constraint. "And how have you been--amusing yourself?"
"I?" Carelessly he made reply. "I have been playing around with Ina Rose chiefly--to save us both from boredom."
There sounded a faint jeering note behind the carelessness of his voice. Avery quickened her pace almost unconsciously.
"It's all right," said Piers. "There's been no damage done."
"You don't know that," said Avery, without looking at him.
"Yes, I do. She'll marry Dick Guyes. I told her she would the night before they left, and she didn't say she wouldn't. He's a much better chap than I am, you know," said Piers, with an odd touch of sincerity. "And he's head over ears in love with her into the bargain."
"Are you trying to excuse yourself?" said Avery.
He laughed. "What for? For not marrying Ina Rose? I assure you I never meant to marry her."
"For trifling with her." Avery's voice was hard, but he affected not to notice.
"A game's a game," he said lightly.
Avery stopped very suddenly and faced round upon him. "That sort of game," she said, and her voice throbbed with the intensity of her indignation, "is monstrous--is contemptible--a game that none but blackguards ever stoop to play!"
Piers stood still. "Great Scott!" he said softly.
Avery swept on. Once roused, she was ruthless in her arraignment.
"Men--some men--find it amusing to go through life breaking women's hearts just for the sport of the thing. They regard it as a pastime, in the same light as fox-hunting or cards or racing. And when the game is over, they laugh among themselves and say what fools women are. And so they may be, and so they are, many of them. But is it honourable, is it manly, to take advantage of their weakness? I never thought you were that sort. I thought you were at least honest."
"Did you?" said Piers.
He was holding himself very straight and