He
stumbled blindly, heavily, as he went, and the crying of the wheeling
sea-gulls came plaintively through a silence that could be felt.
But ere that silence paralysed her, Avery spoke, raising her voice, for
the urgency was great.
"Piers, stop!"
He stopped instantly, but he did not turn, merely stood tensely waiting.
She collected herself and went after him. She laid a hand that trembled
on his arm.
"Don't leave me like this!" she said.
Slowly he turned his head and looked at her, and the misery of that look
went straight to her heart. All the woman's compassion in her throbbed up
to the surface. She found herself speaking with a tenderness which a
moment before no power on earth would have drawn from her.
"Piers, something is wrong; something has happened. Won't you tell me
what it is?"
"I can't," he said.
His lower lip quivered unexpectedly and she saw his teeth bite savagely
upon it. "I'd better go," he said.
But her hand still held his arm. "No; wait!" she said. "You can't go like
this. Piers, what is the matter with you? Tell me!"
He hesitated. She saw that his self-control was tottering. Abruptly at
length he spoke. "I can't. I'm not master of myself. I--I--" He broke off
short and became silent.
"I knew you weren't," she said, and then, acting upon an impulse which
she knew instinctively that she would never regret, she gave him her
other hand also.
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