came to fetch you."

He moved slowly across and stood before her, looking down into her tired
eyes with an odd species of relentlessness in his own.

"It's an infernal shame that you should work so hard!" he said, with
sudden resentment. "You're looking fagged to death."

Avery smiled a little. "I like hard work," she said.

"Not such as this!" said Piers. "It isn't fit for you. Why can't the lazy
hound do it himself?"

Her smile passed. "Hush, Piers!" she said. "Not here!"

He glanced towards the altar, and she thought a shade of reverence came
into his face for a moment. But he turned to her again immediately with
his flashing, boyish smile.

"Well, it isn't good for you to overwork, you know, Avery. I hate to
think of it. And you have no one to take care of you and see you don't."

Avery got up slowly. Her own face was severe in the candlelight, but
before she could speak he went lightly on.

"Would you like me to play you something before we go? Or are you too
tired to blow? It's rather a shame to suggest it. But it's such a grand
opportunity."

Avery turned at once to the organ with a feeling of relief. As usual she
found it very hard to rebuke him as he deserved.

"Yes, I will blow for you," she said. "But it must be something short,
for we ought to be going."

She sat down and began to blow.

Piers took his place at once at the organ. It was characteristic of him
that he never paused for inspiration. His fingers moved over the keys as
it were by instinct, and in a few moments Avery forgot that she was tired
and dispirited with the bearing of many burdens, forgot all the problems
and difficulties of life, forgot even her charges at the Vicarage and the
waiting schoolroom tea, and sat wrapt as it were in a golden mist of
delight, watching the slow spreading of a dawn such as she had never seen
even in her dreams. What he played she knew not, and yet the music was
not wholly unfamiliar to her. It waked within her soul harmonies that
vibrated in throbbing response. He spoke to her in a language that she
knew. And as the magic moments passed, the wonderful dawn so grew and
deepened that it seemed to her that all pain, all sorrow, had fallen
utterly away, and she stood on the threshold of a new world.

Wider and wider spread the glory. There came to her an overwhelming sense
of greatness about to be revealed. She became strung to a pitch of
expectancy that was almost anguish, while the music swelled and