"I shall go down the day after to-morrow—on Monday," she said.

"Then I'd better send a wire to Sara," suggested Geoffrey.

"No, don't do that. I intend taking her by surprise." Elisabeth smiled and dimpled like a child in the possession of a secret. "I shall go down there just in time for dinner, and write to Sara the same evening."

Major Durward laughed with indulgent amusement.

"What an absurd lady you are still, Beth!" he exclaimed, his honest face beaming adoration. "No one would take you to be the mother of a grown-up son!"

"Wouldn't they?" For a moment Elisabeth's eyes—veiled, enigmatical as ever—rested on Tim's distant figure, where he stood deep in the discussion of some knotty point with the head gardener. Then they came back to her husband's face, and she laughed lightly. "Everybody doesn't see me through the rose-coloured spectacles that you do, dearest."

"There are no 'rose-coloured spectacles' about it," protested Geoffrey energetically. "No one on earth would take you for a day more than thirty—if it weren't for the solid fact of Tim's six feet of bone and muscle!"

Elisabeth jumped up and kissed her husband impulsively.

"Geoffrey, you're a great dear," she declared warmly. "Now I must run off and tell Fanchette to pack my things."

So it came about that on the following Tuesday, Sara, to her astonishment and delight, received a letter from Elisabeth announcing her arrival at the Cliff Hotel.

"Why, Elisabeth is already here!" she exclaimed, addressing the family at Sunnyside collectively. "She came last night."

Selwyn looked up from his correspondence with a kindly smile.

"That's good. You will be able, after all, to bring off the projected meeting between Mrs. Durward and your hermit—who, by the way, seems to have deserted his shell nowadays," he added, twinkling.

And Sara, blissfully unaware that in this instance Elisabeth had abrogated to herself the rights of destiny, responded smilingly—

"Yes. Fate has actually arranged things quite satisfactorily for once."

Half an hour later she presented herself at the Cliff Hotel, and was conducted upstairs to Mrs. Durward's sitting-room on the first floor.

Elisabeth welcomed her with all her wonted charm and sweetness. There was a shade of gravity in her manner as she spoke of Sara's engagement, but no hint of annoyance. She dwelt solely on Tim's disappointment and her own, exhibiting no bitterness, but only a rather wistful regret that another had succeeded where Tim had failed.

"And now," she said, drawing Sara out on to the balcony, where she had been sitting prior to the latter's arrival, "and now, tell me about the lucky man."

Sara found it a little difficult to describe the man she loved to the mother of the man she didn't love, but finally, by dint of skilful questioning, Elisabeth elicited the information she sought.

"Forty-three!" she exclaimed, as Sara vouchsafed his age. "But that's much too old for you, my dear!"

Sara shook her head.

"Not a bit," she smiled back.

"It seems so to me," persisted Elisabeth, regarding her with judicial eyes. "Somehow you convey such an impression of youth. You always remind me of spring. You are so slim and straight and vital—like a young sapling. However, perhaps Mr. Trent also has the faculty of youth. Youth isn't a matter of years, after all," she added contemplatively.

"Now go on," she commanded, after a moment. "Tell me what he looks like."

Sara laughed and plunged into a description of Garth's personal appearance.

"And he's got queer eyes—tawny-coloured like a dog's," she wound up, "with a quaint little patch of blue close to each of the pupils."

Elisabeth leaned forward, and beneath the soft laces of her gown the rise and fall of her breast quickened perceptibly.

"Patches of blue?" she repeated.

"Yes—it sounds as though the colours had run, doesn't it?" pursued Sara, laughing a little. "But it's really rather effective."

"And did you say his name was Trent—Garth Trent?" asked Elisabeth. She had gone a little grey about the mouth, and she moistened her lips with her tongue before speaking. There was a tone of incredulity in her voice.

"Yes. It's not a beautiful name, is it?" smiled Sara.

"It's rather a curious one," agreed Elisabeth with an effort. "I'm really quite longing to meet this odd man with the patchwork eyes and the funny name."

"You shall see him to-day," Sara promised. "Audrey Maynard is giving a picnic in Haven Woods, and Garth will be there. You will come with us, won't you?"

"I think I must," replied Elisabeth. "Although"—negligently—"picnics are not much in my line."

"Oh, Audrey's picnics aren't like other people's," rejoined Sara reassuringly. "She runs them just as she runs everything else, on lines of combined perfection and informality! The lunch will be the production of a French chef, and the company a few carefully selected intimates."

"Very well, I'll come—if you're sure Mrs. Maynard won't object to the introduction of a complete stranger."

Sara regarded her affectionately.

"Have you ever met any one who 'objected' to you yet?" she asked with some amusement.

Elisabeth made no answer. Instead, she pointed to the Monk's Cliff, where the grey stone of Far End gleamed in the sunlight against its dark background of trees.

"Who lives there?" she asked. Sara's eyes followed the direction of her hand, and she smiled.

"I'm going to live there," she answered. "That's Garth's home."

"Oh-h!" Elisabeth drew a quick breath. "It's a grim-looking place," she added, after a moment. "Rather lonely, I should imagine."

"Garth is fond of solitude," replied Sara simply, and she missed the swift, searching glance instantly leveled at her by the hyacinth eyes.

When at length she took her departure, it was with a promise to return later on with Molly and Dr. Selwyn, so that they could all four walk out to Haven Woods together—since the doctor had undertaken to get through his morning's rounds in time to join the picnicking party.

Elisabeth accompanied her visitor to the head of the stairs, and then, returning to her room, stepped out on to the balcony once more. For a long time she stood leaning against the balustrade, gazing thoughtfully across the bay to that lonely house on the slope of the cliff.

"Garth Trent!" she murmured. "Trent! . . . And eyes with patches of blue in them! . . . Heavens! Can it possibly be? Can it be?"

There was a curious quality in her voice, a blending of incredulity and distaste, and yet something that savoured of satisfaction—almost of triumph.

Across her mental vision flitted a memory of just such eyes—gay, laughing, love-lit eyes, out of which the laughter had been suddenly dashed.



CHAPTER XXV

THE CUT DIRECT

It was a merry party which had gathered together in the shady heart of Haven Woods. The Selwyns, Sara and Elisabeth, Miles Herrick and the Lavender Lady were all there, and, in addition, there was a large and light-hearted contingent from Greenacres, where Audrey was entertaining a houseful of friends. Only Garth had not yet arrived.

Two young subalterns on leave and a couple of pretty American sisters, all of them staying at Greenacres, were making things hum, nobly seconded in their efforts by Miles Herrick, who had practically recovered from his sprained ankle and one of whose "good days" it chanced to be.

Every one seemed bubbling over with good-humour and high spirits, so that the dell re-echoed to the shouts of jolly laughter, while the birds, flitting nervously hither and thither, wondered what manner of creatures these were who had invaded their quiet sanctuary of the woods. And presently, when the whole party gathered round the white cloth, spread with every dainty that the inspired mind of Audrey's chef had been able to devise, and the popping corks began to punctuate the babble of chattering voices, they took wing and fled incontinently. They had heard similar sharp, explosive sounds before, and had noted them as being generally the harbingers of sudden death.

"Where's that wretched hermit of yours, Sara?" demanded Audrey gaily. "I told him we should lunch at one, and it's already a quarter-past. Ah!"—catching sight of a lean, supple figure advancing between the trees—"Here he is at last!"

A shout greeted Garth's approach, and the uproarious quartette composed of the two subalterns and the girls from New York City pounded joyously with their forks upon their plates, creating a perfect pandemonium of noise, Miles recklessly participating in the clamorous welcome, while the Lavender Lady fluttered her handkerchief, and Sara and Audrey both hurried forward to meet the late comer. In the general excitement nobody chanced to observe the effect which Trent's appearance had had upon one of the party.

Elisabeth had half-risen from the grassy bank on which she had been sitting, and her face was suddenly milk-white. Even her lips had lost their soft rose-colour, and were parted as if an exclamation of some kind had been only checked from passing them by sheer force of will.

Out of her white face, her eyes, seeming so dark that they were almost violet, stared fixedly at Garth as he approached. Their expression was as masked, as enigmatical as ever, yet back of it there gleamed an odd light, and it was as though some curious menace lay hidden in its quiet, slumbrous fire.

The little group composed of Audrey, Sara, and Garth had joined the main party now, and Garth was shaking eager, outstretched hands and laughingly tossing back the shower of chaff which greeted his tardy arrival.

Then Sara, laying her hand on his arm, steered him towards Elisabeth. Some one who had been standing a little in front of the latter, screening her from Trent's view, moved aside as they approached.

"Garth, let me introduce you to Mrs. Durward."

The smile that would naturally have accompanied the words was arrested ere it dawned, and involuntarily Sara drew back before the instant, startling change in Garth's face. It had grown suddenly ashen, and his eyes were like those of a man who, walking in some pleasant place, finds all at once, that a bottomless abyss has opened at his feet.

For a full moment he and Elisabeth stared at each other in a silence so vital, so pregnant with some terrible significance, that it impacted upon the whole prevailing atmosphere of care-free jollity.

A sudden muteness descended on the party, the laughing voices trailing off into affrighted silence, and in the dumb stillness that followed Sara was vibrantly conscious of the hostile clash of wills between the man and woman who had, in a single instant, become the central figures of the little group.

Then Elisabeth's voice—that amazingly sweet voice of hers—broke the profound quiet.

"Mr.—Trent"—she hesitated delicately before the name—"and I have met before."

And quite deliberately, with a proud, inflexible dignity, she turned her back upon him and moved away.

Sara never forgot the few moments that followed. She felt as though she were on the brink of some crisis in her life which had been slowly drawing nearer and nearer to her and was now acutely imminent, and instinctively she sought to gather all her energies together to meet it. What it might be she could not guess, but she was sure that this declared enmity between the man she loved and the woman who was her friend preluded some menace to her happiness.

Her eyes sought Garth's in horror-stricken interrogation.

"What is it? What does she mean?" she demanded swiftly, in a breathless undertone, instinctively drawing aside from the rest of the party.

He laughed shortly.

"She means mischief, probably," he replied. "Mrs. Durward is no friend of mine."

Sara's eyes blazed.

"She shall explain," she exclaimed impetuously, and she swung aside, meaning to follow Elisabeth and demand an explanation of the insult. But Garth checked her.

"No," he said decidedly. "Please do nothing—say nothing. For Audrey's sake we can't have a scene—here."

"But it's unpardonable——"

"Do as I say," he insisted. "Believe me, you will only make things worse if you interfere. I will make my apologies to Audrey and go. For my sake, Sara"—he looked at her intently—"go back and face it out. Behave as if nothing had happened."

Compelled, in spite of herself, by his insistence, Sara reluctantly assented and, leaving him, made her way slowly back to the others.

A disjointed buzz of talk sprayed up against her ears. Every one rushed into conversation, making valiant, if quite fruitless efforts to behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, while, a little apart from the main group, Elisabeth stood alone.

Meanwhile Trent sought out his hostess, and together they moved away, pausing at last beneath the canopy of trees.

"No words can quite meet what has just occurred," he said formally. "I can only express my regret that my presence here should have occasioned such a contretemps."

Although the whole brief scene had been utterly incomprehensible to her, Audrey intuitively sensed the bitter hurt underlying the harshly spoken words, and the outraged hostess was instantly submerged in the friend.

"I am so sorry about it, Garth," she said gently, "although, of course, I don't understand Mrs. Durward's behaviour."

"That is very kind of you!" he replied, his voice softening. "But please do not visit your very natural indignation upon Mrs. Durward. I alone am to blame, I ought never to have renounced my role of hermit. Unfortunately"—with a brief smile of such sadness that Audrey felt her heart go out to him in a sudden rush of sympathy—"my mere presence is an abuse of my friends' hospitality."

"No, no!" she exclaimed quickly. "We are all glad to have you with us—we were so pleased when—when at last you came out of your shell, Garth"—with a faint smile.

"Still the fact remains that I am outside the social pale. I had no business to thrust myself in amongst you. However—after this—you may rest assured that I shan't offend again."

"I decline to rest assured of anything of the kind," asserted Audrey with determination. "Don't be such a fool, Garth—or so unfair to your friends. Just because you chance to have met a women who, for some reason, chooses to cut you, doesn't alter our friendship for you in the very least. What Mrs. Durward may have against you I don't know—and I don't care either. I have nothing against you, and I don't propose to give any pal of mine the go-by because some one else happens to have quarreled with him."

Trent's eyes were curiously soft as he answered her.

"Thank you for that," he said earnestly. "All the same, I think you will have to make up your mind to allow your—friend, as you are good enough to call me, to go to the wall. You, and others like you, dragged him out, but, believe me, his place is not in the centre of the room. There are others besides Mrs. Durward who would give you the reason why, if you care to know it."

"I don't care to know it," responded Audrey firmly. "In fact, I should decline to recognize any reason against my calling you friend. I don't intend to let you go, nor will Miles, you'll find."

"Ah! Herrick! He's a good chap, isn't he?" said Trent a little wistfully.

"We all are—once you get to know us," returned Audrey, persistently cheerful. "And Sara—Sara won't let you go either, Garth."

His sensitive, bitter mouth twisted suddenly.

"If you don't mind," he said quickly, "we won't talk about Sara. And I won't keep you any longer from your guests. It was—just like you—to take it as you have done, Audrey. And if, later on, you find yourself obliged to revise your opinion of me—I shall understand. And I shall not resent it."

"I'm not very likely to do what you suggest."

He looked at her with a curious expression on his face.

"I'm afraid it is only too probable," he rejoined simply.

He wrung her hand, and, turning, walked swiftly away through the wood, while Audrey retraced her footsteps in the direction of the dell.

She was feeling extremely annoyed at what she considered to be Mrs. Durward's hasty and inconsiderate action. It was unpardonable of any one thus to spoil the harmony of the day, she reflected indignantly, and then she looked up and met Elisabeth's misty, hyacinth eyes, full of a gentle, appealing regret.

"Mrs. Maynard, I must beg you to try and pardon me," she said, approaching with a charming gesture of apology. "I have no excuse to offer except that Mr. Trent is a man I—I cannot possibly meet." She paused and seemed to swallow with some difficulty, and of a sudden Audrey was conscious of a thrill of totally unexpected compassion. There was so evidently genuine pain and emotion behind the hesitating apology.

"I am sorry you should have been distressed," she replied kindly. "It has been a most unfortunate affair all round."

Elisabeth bestowed a grateful little smile upon her.

"If you will forgive me," she said, "I will say good-bye now. I am sure you will understand my withdrawing."

"Oh no, you mustn't think of such a thing," cried Audrey hospitably, though within herself she could not but acknowledge that the suggestion was a timely one. "Please don't run away from us like that."

"It is very kind of you, but really—if you will excuse me—I think I would prefer not to remain. I feel somewhat bouleversee. And I am so distressed to have been the unwitting cause of spoiling your charming party."

Audrey hesitated.

"Of course, if you would really rather go——" she began.

"I would rather," persisted Elisabeth with a gentle inflexibility of purpose. "Will you give a message to Sara for me?" Audrey nodded. "Ask her to come and see me to-morrow, and tell her that—that I will explain." Suddenly she stretched out an impulsive hand. "Oh, Mrs. Maynard! If you knew how much I dread explaining this matter to Sara! Perhaps, however"—her eyes took on a thoughtful expression—"Perhaps, however, it may not be necessary—perhaps it can be avoided."

A sense of foreboding seemed to close round Audrey's heart, as she met the gaze of the beautiful, enigmatic eyes. What was it that Elisabeth intended to "explain" to Sara? Something connected with Garth Trent, of course, and it was impossible, in view of the attitude Elisabeth had assumed, to hope that it could be aught else than something to his detriment.

"If an explanation can be avoided, Mrs. Durward," she said rather coldly, "I think it would be much better. The least said, the soonest mended, you know," she added, looking straight into the baffling eyes.

The two women, all at once antagonistic and suspicious of each other, shook hands formally, and Elisabeth took her way through the woods, while Audrey rejoined her neglected guests and used her best endeavours to convert an entertainment that threatened to become a failure into, at least, a qualified success. By dint of infinite tact, and the loyal cooperation of Miles Herrick, she somehow achieved it, and the majority of the picnickers enjoyed themselves immensely.

Only Sara felt as though a shadow had crept out from some hidden place and cast its grey length across the path whereon she walked, while Miles and Audrey, discerning the shadow with the clear-sighted vision of friendship, were filled with apprehension for the woman whom they had both learned to love.



CHAPTER XXVI

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

Judson crossed the hall at Far End and, opening the front door, peered anxiously out into the moonlit night for the third time that evening.

Neither he nor his wife could surmise what had become of their master. He had gone away, as they knew, with the intention of joining a picnic party in Haven Woods, but he had given no instructions that he wished the dinner-hour postponed, and now the beautiful little dinner which Mrs. Judson had prepared and cooked for her somewhat exigent employer had been entirely robbed of its pristine delicacy of flavour, since it had been "keeping hot" in the oven for at least two hours.

"Coming yet?" queried Mrs. Judson, as her husband returned to the kitchen.

The latter shook his head.

"Not a sign of 'im," he replied briefly.

Ten minutes later, the house door opened and closed with a bang, and Judson hastened upstairs to ascertain his master's wishes. When he again rejoined the wife of his bosom, his face wore a look of genuine concern.

"Something's happened," he announced solemnly. "Ten years have I been in Mr. Trent's service, and never, Maria, never have I seen him look as he do now."

"What's he looking like, then?" demanded Mrs. Judson, pausing with a saucepan in her hand.

"Like a man what's been in hell," replied her husband dramatically. "He's as white as that piece of paper"—pointing to the sheet of cooking paper with which Mrs. Judson had been conscientiously removing the grease from the chipped potatoes. "And his eyes look wild. He's been walking, too—must have walked twenty miles or thereabouts, I should think, for he seems dead beat and his boots are just a mask of mud. His coat's torn and splashed, as well—as if he'd pushed his way through bushes and all, without ever stopping to see where he was going."

"Then he'll be wanting his dinner," observed Mrs. Judson practically. "I'll dish it up—'tisn't what you might call actually spoiled as yet."

"He won't have any. 'Judson,' he says to me, 'bring me a whisky-and-soda and some sandwiches. I don't want nothing else. And then you can lock up and go to bed.'"

"Well, then, bless the man, look alive and get the whisky-and-soda and a tray ready whiles I cut the sandwiches," exclaimed the excellent Mrs. Judson promptly, giving her bemused spouse a push in the direction of the pantry and herself bustling away to fetch a loaf of bread.

"Right you are. But I was so took aback at the master's appearance, Maria, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I wonder if his young lady's given him his congy?" he added reflectively.

Mrs. Judson did not stay to discuss the question, but set about preparing the sandwiches, and a few minutes later Judson carried into Trent's own particular snuggery an attractive-looking little tray and placed it on a table at his master's elbow.

The man had not been far out in his reckoning when he opined that his master had walked "twenty miles or thereabouts." When he had quitted Haven Woods, Garth had started off, heedless of the direction he took, and, since then, he had been tramping, almost blindly, up hill and down dale, over hedges, through woods, along the shore, stumbling across the rocks, anywhere, anywhere in the world to get away from the maddening, devil-ridden thoughts which had pursued him since the brief meeting with a woman whose hyacinth eyes recalled the immeasurable anguish of years ago and threatened the joy which the future seemed to promise.

His face was haggard. Heavy lines had graved themselves about his mouth, and beneath drawn brows his eyes glowed like sombre fires.

Judson paused irresolutely beside him.

"Shall I pour you out a whisky, sir?" he inquired.

Trent started. He had been oblivious of the man's entrance.

"No. I'll do it myself—presently. Lock up and go to bed," he answered brusquely.

But Judson still hesitated. There was an expression of affectionate solicitude on his usually wooden face.

"Better have one at once, sir," he said persuasively. "And I think you'll find the chicken sandwiches very good, sir, if you'll excuse my mentioning it."

For a moment a faint, kindly smile chased away the look of intense weariness in Garth's eyes.

"You transparent old fool, Judson!" he said indulgently. "You're like an old hen clucking round. Very well, make me a whisky, if you will, and give me one of those superlative sandwiches."

Judson waited on him contentedly.

"Anything more to-night, sir? Shall I close the window?" with a gesture towards the wide-open window near which his master sat.

Garth shook his head, and, when at last the manservant had reluctantly taken his departure, he remained for a long time sitting very still, staring out across the moon-washed garden.

Presently he stirred restlessly. Glancing round the room, his eyes fell on his violin, lying upon the table with the bow beside it just as he had laid it down that morning after he had been improvising, in a fit of mad spirits, some variations on the theme of Mendelssohn's Wedding March.

He took up the instrument and struck a few desultory chords. Then, tucking it more closely beneath his chin, he began to play—a broken, fitful melody of haunting sadness, tormented by despairing chords, swept hither and thither by rushing minor cadences—the very spirit of pain itself, wandering, ghost-like, in desert places.

Upstairs Judson turned heavily in his bed.

"Just hark to 'im, Maria," he muttered uneasily. "He fair makes my flesh creep with that doggoned fiddle of his. 'Tis like a child crying in the dark. I wish he'd stop."

But the sad strains still went on, rising and falling, while Garth paced back and forth the length of the room and the candles flickered palely in the moonlight that poured in through the open window.

Suddenly, across the lawn a figure flitted, noiseless as a shadow. It paused once, as though listening, then glided forward again, slowly drawing nearer and nearer until at last it halted on the threshold of the room.

Garth, for the moment standing with his back towards the window, continued playing, oblivious of the quiet listener. Then, all at once, the feeling that he was no longer alone, that some one was sharing with him the solitude of the night, invaded his consciousness. He turned swiftly, and as his glance fell upon the silent figure standing at the open window, he slowly drew his violin from beneath his chin and remained staring at the apparition as though transfixed.

It was a woman who had thus intruded on his privacy. A scarf of black lace was twisted, hood-like, about her head, and beneath its fragile drapery was revealed the beautiful face and haunting, mysterious eyes of Elisabeth Durward. She had flung a long black cloak over her evening gown, and where it had fallen a little open at the throat her neck gleamed privet-white against its shadowy darkness.

The mystical, transfiguring touch of the moon's soft light had eliminated all signs of maturity, investing her with an amazing look of youth, so that for an instant it seemed to Trent as though the years had rolled back and Elisabeth Eden, in all the incomparable beauty of her girlhood, stood before him.

He gazed at her in utter silence, and the brooding eyes returned his gaze unflinchingly.

"Good God!"

The words burst from him at last in a low, tense whisper, and, as if the sound broke some spell that had been holding both the man and woman motionless, Elisabeth stepped across the threshold and came towards him.

Trent made a swift gesture—almost, it seemed, a gesture of aversion.

"Why have you come here?" he demanded hoarsely.

She drew a little nearer, then paused, her hand resting on the table, and looked at him with a strange, questioning expression in her eyes.

"This is a poor welcome, Maurice," she observed at last.

He winced sharply at the sound of the name by which she had addressed him, then, recovering himself, faced her with apparent composure.

"I have no welcome for you," he said in measured tones. "Why should I have? All that was between us two . . . ended . . . half a life-time ago."

"No!" she cried out. "No! Not all! There is still my son's happiness to be reckoned."

"Your son's happiness?" He stared at her amazedly. "What has your son's happiness to do with me?"

"Everything!" she answered. "Everything! Sara Tennant is the woman he loves."

"And have you come here to blame me for the fact that she does not return his love?"—with an accent of ironical amusement.

"No, I don't blame you. But if it had not been for you she would have married him. They were engaged, and then"—her voice shook a little—"you came! You came—and robbed Tim of his happiness."

Trent smiled sarcastically.

"An instance of the grinding of the mills of God," he said lightly. "You robbed me—you'll agree?—of something I valued. And now—inadvertently—I have robbed you in return of your son's happiness. It appears"—consideringly—"an unusually just dispensation of Providence. And the sins of the parents are visited on the child, as is the usual inscrutable custom of such dispensations."

Elisabeth seemed to disregard the bitter gibe his speech contained. She looked at him with steady eyes.

"I want you—out of the way," she said deliberately.

"Indeed?" The indifferent, drawling tone was contradicted by the sudden dangerous light that gleamed in the hazel eyes. "You mean you want me—to pay—once more?"

She looked away uneasily, flushing a little.

"I'm afraid it does amount to that," she admitted.

"And how would you suggest it should be done?" he inquired composedly.

Her eyes came back to his face. There was an eager light in them, and when she spoke the words hurried from her lips in imperative demand.

"Oh, it would be so easy, Maurice! You have only to convince Sara that you are not fit to marry her—or any woman, for that matter! Tell her what your reputation is—tell her why you can never show yourself amongst your fellow men, why you live here under an assumed name. She won't want to marry you when she knows these things, and Tim would have his chance to win her back again."

"You mean—let me quite understand you, Elisabeth"—Trent spoke with curious precision—"that I am to blacken myself in Sara's eyes, so that, discovering what a wolf in sheep's clothing I am, she will break off our engagement. That, I take it, is your suggestion?"

Beneath his searching glance she faltered a moment. Then—

"Yes," she answered boldly. "That is it."

"It's a charming programme," he commented. "But it doesn't seem to me that you have considered Sara at all in the matter. It will hardly add to her happiness to find that she has given her heart to—what shall we say?"—smiling disagreeably—"to the wrong kind of man?"

"Of, of course, she will be upset, disillusionnee, for a time. She will suffer. But then we all have our share of suffering. Sara cannot hope to be exempt. And afterwards—afterwards"—her eyes shining—"she will be happy. She and Tim will be happy together."

"And so you are prepared to cause all this suffering, Sara's and mine—though I suppose"—with a bitter inflection—"that last hardly counts with you!—in order to secure Tim's happiness?"

"Yes," significantly, "I am prepared—to do anything to secure that."

Trent stared at her in blank amazement.

"Have you no conscience?" he asked at last. "Have you never had any?"

She looked at him a little piteously.

"You don't understand," she muttered. "You don't understand. I'm his mother. And I want him to be happy."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I am sorry," he said, "that I cannot help you. But I'm afraid Tim's happiness isn't going to be purchased at my expense. I haven't the least intention of blackening myself in the eyes of the woman I love for the sake of Tim—or of twenty Tims. Please understand that, once and for all."

He gestured as though to indicated that she should precede him to the window by which she had entered. But she made no movement to go. Instead she flung back her cloak as though it were stifling her, and caught him impetuously by the arm.

"Maurice! Maurice! For God's sake, listen to me!" Her voice was suddenly shaken with passionate entreaty. "Use some other method, then! Break with her some other way! If you only knew how I hate to ask you this—I who have already brought only sorrow and trouble into your life! But Tim—my son—he must come first!" She pressed a little closer to him, lifting her face imploringly. "Maurice, you loved me once—for the sake of that love, grant me my boy's happiness!"

Quietly, inexorably, he disengaged himself from the eager clasp of her hand. Her beautiful, agonized face, the vehement supplication of her voice, moved him not a jot.

"You are making a poor argument," he said coldly. "You are making your request in the name of a love that died three-and-twenty years ago."

"Do you mean"—she stared at him—"that you have not cared—at all—since?" She spoke incredulously. Then, suddenly, she laughed. "And I—what a fool I was!—I used to grieve—often—thinking how you must be suffering!"

He smiled wryly as at some bitter memory.

"Perhaps I did," he responded shortly. "Death has its pains—even the death of first love. My love for you died hard, Elisabeth—but it died. You killed it."

"And you will not do what I ask for the sake of the love you—once—gave me?" There was a desperate appeal in her low voice.

He shook his head. "No," he said, "I will not."

She made a gesture of despair.

"Then you drive me into doing what I hate to do!" she exclaimed fiercely. She was silent for a moment, standing with bowed head, her mouth working painfully. Then, drawing herself up, she faced him again. There was something in the lithe, swift movement that recalled a panther gathering itself together for its spring.

"Listen!" she said. "If you will not find some means of breaking off your engagement with Sara, then I shall tell her the whole story—tell her what manner of man it is she proposes to make her husband!"

There was a supreme challenge in her tones, and she waited for his answer defiantly—her head flung back, her whole body braced, as it were, to resistance.

In the silence that followed, Trent drew away from her—slowly, repugnantly, as though from something monstrous and unclean.

"You wouldn't—you couldn't do such a thing!" he exclaimed in low, appalled tones of unbelief.

"I could!" she asserted, though her face whitened and her eyes flinched beneath his contemptuous gaze.

"But it would be a vile thing to do," he pursued, still with that accent of incredulous abhorrence. "Doubly vile for you to do this thing."

"Do you think I don't know that—don't realize it?" she answered desperately. "You can say nothing that could make me think it worse than I do already. It would be the basest action of which any woman could be guilty. I recognize that. And yet"—she thrust her face, pinched and strained-looking, into his—"and yet I shall do it. I'd take that sin—or any other—on my conscience for the sake of Tim."

Trent turned away from her with a gesture of defeat, and for a moment or two he paced silently backwards and forwards, while she watched him with burning eyes.

"Do you realize what it means?" she went on urgently. "You have no way out. You can't deny the truth of what I have to tell."

"No," he acknowledged harshly. "As you say, I cannot deny it. No one knows that better than yourself."

Suddenly he turned to her, and his face was that of a man in uttermost anguish of soul. Beads of moisture rimmed his drawn mouth, and when he spoke his voice was husky and uneven.

"Haven't I suffered enough—paid enough?" he burst out passionately. "You've had your pound of flesh. For God's sake, be satisfied with that! Leave—Garth Trent—to build up what is left of his life in peace!"

The roughened, tortured tones seemed to unnerve her. For a moment she hid her face in her hands, shuddering, and when she raised it again the tears were running down her cheeks.

"I can't—I can't!" she whispered brokenly. "I wish I could . . . you were good to me once. Oh! Maurice, I'm not a bad woman, not a wicked woman . . . but I've my son to think of . . . his happiness." She paused, mastering, with an effort, the emotion that threatened to engulf her. "Nothing else counts—nothing! If you go to the wall, Tim wins."

"So I'm to pay—first for your happiness, and now, more than twenty years later, for your son's. You don't ask—very much—of a man, Elisabeth."

He had himself in hand now. The momentary weakness which had wrenched that brief, anguished appeal from his lips was past, and the dry scorn of his voice cut like a lash, stinging her into hostility once more.

"I have given you the chance to break with Sara yourself—on any pretext you choose to invent," she said hardly. "You've refused—" She hesitated. "You do—still refuse, Maurice?" Again the note of pleading, of appeal in her voice. It was as though she begged of him to spare them both the consequences of that refusal.

He bowed. "Absolutely."

She sighed impatiently.

"Then I must take the only other way that remains. You know what that will be."

He stooped, and, picking up her cloak which had fallen to the floor, held it for her to put on. He had completely regained his customary indifference of manner.

"I think we need not prolong this interview, then," he said composedly.

Elisabeth drew the cloak around her and moved slowly towards the window. Outside, the tranquil moonlight still flooded the garden, the peaceful quiet of the night remained all undisturbed by the fierce conflict of human wills and passions that had spent itself so uselessly.

"One thing more"—she paused on the threshold as Trent spoke again—"You will not blacken the name of—"

"No!" It was as though she had struck the unuttered word from his lips. "Did you think I should? Those who bear it have suffered enough. There's no need to drag it through the mire a second time."

With a quick movement she drew her cloak more closely about her, and stepped out into the garden. For a moment Garth watched her crossing the lawns, a slender, upright, swiftly moving shadow. Then a clump of bushes, thrusting its wall of darkness into the silver sea of moonlight, hid her from his sight, and he turned back into the room. Stumblingly he made his way to the chimney-piece, and, resting his arms upon it, hid his face.

For a long time he remained thus, motionless, while the grandfather clock in the corner ticked away indifferently, and one by one the candles guttered down and went out in little pools of grease.

When at last he raised his face, it looked almost ghastly in the moonlight, so lined and haggard was it, and its sternly set expression was that of a man who had schooled himself to endure the supreme ill that destiny may hold in store.



CHAPTER XXVII

J'ACCUSE!

"Of course, there could be but one ending to it all. The man to whom you have promised yourself—Garth Trent—was court-martialled and cashiered."

As she finished speaking, Elisabeth's hands, which had been tightly locked together upon her knee, relaxed and fell stiffly apart, cramped with the intensity of their convulsive pressure.

Sara sat silent, staring with unseeing eyes across the familiar bay to that house on the cliff where lived the man whose past history—that history he had guarded so strenuously and completely from the ears of their little world—had just been revealed to her.

Mentally she was envisioning the whole scene of the story which hesitatingly—almost unwilling, it seemed—Elisabeth had poured out. She could see the lonely fort on the Indian Frontier, sparsely held by its indomitable little band of British soldiers, and ringed about on every side by the hill tribes who had so suddenly and unexpectedly risen in open rebellion. In imagination she could sense the hideous tension as day succeeded day and each dawning brought no sign of the longed-for relief forces. Indeed, it was not even known if the messengers sent by the officer in command had got safely through to the distant garrison to deliver his urgent message asking succour. And each evening found those who were besieged within the fort with diminished rations, and diminished hope, and with one or more dead to mark the enemy's unceasing vigilance.

And then had come the mysterious apparent withdrawal of the tribesmen. For hours no sign of the enemy had been seen, nor a single fugitive shot fired when one or other of the besieged had risked themselves at an unguarded aperture, whereas, until that morning, for a man to show himself, even for a moment, had been to court almost certain death.

Could the rebels have received word of the approach of a relieving force, whispers of a punitive expedition on its way, and so stolen stealthily, discreetly away in the silence of the night?

The hearts of the little beleaguered force rose high with hope, but again morning drew to evening without bringing sight or sound of succour. Only the enemy persisted in that strange, unbroken silence, and, at last, a hasty council of war was held within the fort, and Garth Trent, together with a handful of men, had been detailed to make a reconnaissance.

Sara could picture the little party stealing out on their dangerous errand—dangerous, indeed, if the withdrawal of the tribesmen were but a bluff, a scheme devised to lull the besieged into a false sense of security in order to attack them later at a greater disadvantage. And then—the sudden spit of a rifle, a ringing fusillade of shots in the dense darkness! The reconnaissance party had run into an ambuscade!

Sara could guess well the frayed nerves, the low vitality of men who were short of food, short of sleep, and worn with incessant watching night and day. But—Could it be possible that Englishmen had flinched at the crucial moment—lost their nerve and fled in wild disorder? Englishmen—who held the sacred trust of empire in their hands—to show the white feather to a horde of rebel natives! It was inconceivable! Sara, reared in the great tradition by that gallant gentleman, Patrick Lovell, refused to credit it.

She drew a long, shuddering breath.

"I don't believe it," she said.

Elisabeth looked at her with a pitying comprehension of the blow she had just dealt her.

"I'm afraid," she said gently, almost deprecatingly, "that there is no questioning the finding of the court-martial. Garth must have lost his head at the unexpectedness of the attack. And panic is a curious, unaccountable kind of thing, you know."

"I don't believe it," reiterated Sara stubbornly.

Elisabeth bent forward.

"My dear," she said, "there is no possibility of doubt. Garth was wounded; they brought him in afterwards—shot in the back! . . . Oh! It was all a horrible business! And the most wretched part of it all was that in reality they were only a few stray tribesmen whom our men had encountered. Perhaps Garth thought they were outnumbered—I don't know. But anyway, coming on the top of all that had gone before, the surprise attack in the darkness broke his nerve completely. He didn't even attempt to make a stand. He simply gave way. What followed was just a headlong scramble as to who could save his skin first! I shall never forget Garth's return after—after the court-martial." She shuddered a little at the memory. "I—I was engaged to him at the time, Sara, and I had no choice but to break it off. Garth was cashiered—disgraced—done for."

Sara's drooping figure suddenly straightened.

"You—you—were engaged to Garth?" she said in a queer, high voice.

"Yes"—simply. "I had promised to marry him."

Sara was silent for a long moment. Then—

"He never told me," she muttered. "He never told me."

"No? It was hardly likely he would, was it? He couldn't tell you that without telling you—the rest."

Sara made no answer. She felt stunned—beaten into helpless silence by the quiet, inexorable voice that, bit by bit, minute by minute, had drawn aside the veil of ignorance and revealed the dry bones and rottenness that lay hidden behind it.

"I don't believe it!" she had cried in a futile effort to convince herself by the sheer reiteration of denial. But she did believe it, nevertheless. The whole miserable story tallied too accurately with the bitterly significant remarks that Garth himself had let fall from time to time.

That day of the dog-fight, for instance. What was it he had said? "A certain amount of allowance must be made for nerves."

And again: "I suppose no man can be dead sure of himself—always."

The implication was too horribly clear to be evaded.

He had told her, moreover, that he was a man who had made a shipwreck of his life, that in a moment of folly—a moment of funk she knew now to be the veridical description!—he had flung away the whole chances of his life. The man whom she had loved, and, in her love, idealized, had proved himself, when the test came, that most despicable of things, a coward! The pain of realization was almost unbearable.

Suddenly, across the utter desolation of the moment there shot a single ray of hope. She turned triumphantly to Elisabeth.

"But if it were true that Garth—had shown cowardice, why was he not shot? They shoot men for cowardice"—grimly.

"There are many excuses to be made for him, Sara," replied Elisabeth gently.

"Excuses! For cowardice!" The low-spoken words were icy with a biting contempt. "I'm afraid I could not find them."

"The court-martial did, nevertheless. At the trial, the 'prisoner's friend'—in this instance, Garth's colonel, who was very fond of him and had always thought very highly of him—pleaded extenuating circumstances. Garth's youth, his previous good record, the conditions of the moment—the continuous mental and physical strain of the days preceding his sudden loss of nerve—all these things were urged by the 'prisoner's friend,' and the sentence was commuted to one of cashiering."

"It would have been better if he had been shot," said Sara dully. Then suddenly she clapped both hands to her mouth. "Ah—h! What am I saying? Garth! . . . Garth! . . ."

She stumbled to her feet, her white, ravaged face turned for a moment yearningly towards Far End, where it stood bathed in the mocking morning sunlight. Then she spun half-round, groping for support, and fell in a crumpled heap on the floor.



When Sara came to herself again, she was lying on the bed in Elisabeth's room at the hotel. Some one had drawn the blinds, shutting out the crude glare of the sunlight, and in the semi-darkness she could feel soft hands about her, bathing her face with something fragrantly cool and refreshing. She opened her eyes and looked up to find Elisabeth's face bent over her—unspeakably kind and tender, like that of some Madonna brooding above her child.

"Are you feeling better?" The sweet, familiar voice roused her to the realization of what had happened. It was the same voice that, before unconsciousness had wrapped her in its merciful oblivion, had been pouring into her ears an unbelievably hideous story—a nightmare tale of what had happened at some far distant Indian outpost.

The details of the story seemed to be all jumbled confusedly together in Sara's mind, but, as gradually full consciousness returned, they began to sort themselves and fall into their rightful places, and all at once, with a swift and horrible contraction of her heart, the truth knocked at the door of memory.

She struggled up on to her elbow, her eyes frantically appealing.

"Elisabeth, was it true? Was it—all true?"

In an instant Elisabeth's hand closed round hers.

"My dear, you must try and face it. And"—her voice shook a little—"you must try and forgive me for telling you. But I couldn't let you marry Garth Trent in ignorance, could I?"

"Then it is true? Garth was court-martialled and—and cashiered?" Sara sank back against her pillows. Still, deep within her, there flickered a faint spark of hope. Against all reason, against all common sense the faith that was within her fought against accepting the bitter knowledge that Garth was guilty of what was in her eyes the one unpardonable sin.

Unpardonable! The word started a new and overwhelming train of thought. She remembered that she had told Garth she did not care what sin he had been guilty of, had forced him to believe that nothing could make any difference to her love for him, to her willingness to become his wife, and share his burden. Yet now, now that the hidden thing in his life had been revealed to her, she found herself shrinking from it in utter loathing! Her promises of faith and loyalty were already crumbling under the strain of her knowledge of the truth.

She flinched from the recognition of the fact, seeking miserably to palliate and excuse it. When she had given Garth that impetuous assurance of her confidence, she had not, in her crudest imaginings, dreamed of anything so hideous and ignoble as the actual truth had proved to be. Vaguely, she had deemed him outcast for some big, reckless sin that by the splendour of its recklessness almost earned its own forgiveness.

And instead—this! This drab-hued, pitiful weakness for which she could find no pardon in her heart.

Through the turmoil of her thoughts she became conscious that Elisabeth was stooping over her, answering her wild incredulous questioning.

"Yes, it is true," she was saying steadily. "He was court-martialled and cashiered. But, if you still doubt it, ask him yourself, Sara."

Sara's hands clenched themselves. Her eyes were feverishly brilliant in her white, shrunken face.

"Yes, I'll ask him myself." She panted a little. "You must be wrong—there must be some horrible mistake somewhere. I've been mad—mad to believe it for a single moment." She slipped from the bed to her feet, and stood confronting Elisabeth with a kind of desperate defiance. "Do you hear what I say?" she said loudly. "I don't believe it. I will never believe it till Garth himself tells me that it is true."

"Oh, my dear"—Elisabeth shrank away a little, but her eyes were kind and infinitely pitying. Sara felt frightened of the pitying kindness in those eyes—its rejection of Garth's innocence was so much stronger than any asseveration of mere words. Vaguely she heard Elisabeth's patient voice: "I think you are right. Ask him yourself—but, Sara, he will not be able to deny it."



CHAPTER XXVIII

RED RUIN

"You sent for me, and I am here."

The brusque, curt speech sounded a knell to the faint hope which Sara had been tending whilst she waited for Garth's coming. His voice, the dogged expression of his face, the chill, brief manner, each held its grievous message for the woman who had learned to recognize the signs of mental stress in the man she loved.

"Yes, I sent for you," she said. "I—I—Garth, I have seen Elisabeth."

"Yes?" Just the one brief monosyllable in response, uttered with a slightly questioning inflection. Nothing more.

Sara twisted her hands together. There was something unapproachable about Garth as he stood there—quiet, inflexible, waiting to hear what she had to say to him.

With an effort she began again.

"She has told me of something—something that happened to you, in the past."

"Yes? Quite a great deal happened—in my past. What was it, in particular, that she told you?"

The mocking quality in his tones stung her into open accusation.

"She told me that you had been court-martialled and cashiered from the Army—for cowardice." The words came slowly, succinctly.

"Ah—h!" He drew his breath sharply, and a grey shadow seemed to spread itself over his face.

Sara waited—waited with an intensity of longing that was well-nigh unendurable—for either the indignant denial or the easy, mirthful scorn wherewith an innocent man might be expected to answer such a charge.

But there came neither of these. Only silence—an endless, agonizing silence, while Garth stood utterly motionless, looking at her, his face slowly greying.

It was impossible to interpret the expression of his eyes. There was neither anger, nor horror, nor pleading in their cool indomitable stare, but only a hard, bright impenetrability, shuttering the soul behind it from the aching gaze of the woman who waited.

In that silence, Sara's flickering hope that the accusation might prove false went out in blinding darkness. She knew, now—knew it as certainly as though Garth had answered her—that he was unable to deny it. Still, she would brace herself to hear it—to endure the ultimate anguish of words.

"Is it true?" she questioned him. "Is it true that you were—cashiered for cowardice?"

At last he spoke.

"Yes," he said. "It is true." His voice was altogether passionless, but something had come into his face, into his whole attitude, which denied the calm passivity of his reply. The soul of the man—a soul in ineffable extremity of suffering—was struggling for expression, striving against the rigid bonds of the motionless body in which his iron will constrained it.

Sara could sense it—a tormented flame shut in a casing of steel—and she was swept by a torrent of uttermost pity and compassion.

"Garth! Garth! But there must have been some explanation! . . . You weren't in your right senses at the moment. Ah! Tell me——" She broke off, her voice failing her, her arms outflung in a passion of entreaty.

As she leaned towards him, a tremor seemed to run through his entire body—the tremor of leaping muscles straining against the leash. His hands clenched slowly, the nails biting into the bruised flesh. Then he spoke, and his voice was ringing and assured—arrogantly so. The tortured soul within him had been beaten back once more into its prison-house.

"I was quite in my right senses—that night on the Frontier—never more so, believe me"—and his lips twisted in a curious, enigmatical smile. "And as far as explanations—excuses—are concerned, the court-martial made all that were possible. I—I was not shot, you see!"

There was something outrageous in the open derision of the last words. He flung them at her—as though taunting, gibing at the impulse to compassion which had swayed her, sending her tremulously towards him with imploring, outstretched hands.

"The quality of mercy was not strained in the least," he continued. "It fell around me like the proverbial gentle rain. I've quite a lot to be thankful for, don't you think?"—brutally.

"I—I don't know what to think!" she burst out. "That you—you should fall so low—so shamefully low."

"A man will do a good deal to preserve a whole skin, you know," he suggested hardily.

"Why do you speak like that?" she demanded in sharpened tones. "Do you want me to think worse of you than I do already?"

He took a step towards her and stood looking down at her with those bright, hard eyes.

"Yes, I do," he said decidedly. "I want you to think as badly of me as you possibly can. I want you to realize just what sort of a blackguard you had promised to marry, and when you've got that really clear in your mind, you'll be able to forget all about me and marry some cheerful young fool who hasn't been kicked out of the Army."

"As long as I live I shall never—be able—to forget that I loved—a coward." The words came haltingly from her lips. Then suddenly her shaking hands went up to her face, as though to shut him from her sight, and a dry, choking sob tore its way through her throat.

He made a swift stride towards her, then checked himself and stood motionless once more, in the utter quiescence of deliberately arrested movement. Only his hands, hanging stiffly at his sides, opened and shut convulsively, and his eyes should have been hidden. God never meant any man's eyes to wear that look of unspeakable torment.

When at last Sara withdrew her hands and looked at him again, his face was set like a mask, the lips drawn back a little from the teeth in a way that suggested a dumb animal in pain. But she was so hurt herself that she failed to recognize his infinitely greater hurt.

"I think—I think I hate you," she whispered.

His taut muscles seemed to relax.

"I hope you do," he said steadily. "It will be better so."

Something in the quiet acceptance of his tone moved her to a softer, more wistful emotion.

"If it had been anything—anything but that, Garth, I think I could have borne it."

There was a depth of appeal in the low-spoken words. But he ignored it, opposing a reckless indifference to her softened mood.

"Then it's just as well it wasn't 'anything but that.' Otherwise"—sardonically—"you might have felt constrained to abide by your rash promise to marry me."

His eyes flashed over her face, mocking, deriding. He had struck where she was most vulnerable, accusing where her innate honesty of soul admitted she had no defence, and she winced away from the speech almost as though it had been a blow upon her body.

It was true she had given her promise blindly, in ignorance of the facts, but that could not absolve her. It was not Garth who had forced the promise from her. It was she who had impetuously offered it, never conceiving such a possibility as that he might be guilty of the one sin for which, in her eyes, there could be no palliation.

"I know," she said unevenly. "I know. You have the right to remind me of my promise. I—I blame myself. It's horrible—to break one's word."

She was silent a moment, standing with bent head, her instinct to be fair, to play the game, combating the revulsion of feeling with which the knowledge of Garth's act of cowardice had filled her. When she looked up again there was a curious intensity in her expression, wanly decisive.

"Marriage for us—now—could never mean anything but misery." The effort in her voice was palpable. It was as though she were forcing herself to utter words from which her inmost being recoiled. "But I gave you my promise, and if—if you choose to hold me to it—"

"I don't choose!" He broke in harshly. "You may spare yourself any anxiety on that score. You are free—as free as though we had never met. I'm quite ready to bow to your decision that I'm not fit to marry you."

A little caught breath of unutterable relief fluttered between her lips. If he heard it, he made no sign.

"And now"—he turned as though to leave her—"I think that's all that need be said between us."

"It is not all"—in a low voice.

"What? Is there more still?" Again his voice held an insolent irony that lashed her like a whip. "Haven't you yet plumbed the full depths of my iniquity?"

"No. There is still one further thing. You said you loved me?"

"I did—I do still, if such as I may aspire to so lofty an emotion."

"It was a lie. Even"—her voice broke—"even in that you deceived me."

It seemed as though the tremulously uttered words pierced through his armour of sneering cynicism.

"No, in that, at least, I was honest with you." The bitter note of mockery that had rung through all his former speech was suddenly absent—muted, crushed out, and the quiet, steadfast utterance carried conviction even in Sara's reeling faith, shaking her to the very soul.

"But . . . Elisabeth? . . . You loved her once. And love—can't die, Garth."

"No," he said gravely. "Love can't die. But what I felt for Elisabeth was not love—not love as you and I understand it. It was the mad passion of a boy for an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She was an ideal—I invested her with all the qualities and spiritual graces that her beauty seemed to promise. But the Elisabeth I loved—didn't exist." He drew nearer her and, laying his hands on her shoulders, looked down at her with eyes that seemed to burn their way into the inmost depths of her being. "Whatever you may think of me, however low I may have fallen in your sight, believe me in this—that I have loved you and shall always love you, utterly and entirely, with my whole soul and body. It has not been an easy love—I fought against it with all my strength, knowing that it could only carry pain and suffering in its train for both of us. But it conquered me. And when you came to me that day, so courageously, holding out your hands, claiming the love that was unalterably yours—when you came to me like that, a little hurt and wounded because I had been so slow to speak my love—I yielded! Before God, Sara! I had been either more or less than a man had I resisted!"

The grip of his hands upon her shoulders tightened until it was actual pain, and she winced under it, shrinking away from him. He released her instantly, and she stood silently beside him, battling against the longing to respond to that deep, abiding love which neither now, nor ever again in life, would she be able to doubt.

That Garth loved her, wholly and completely, was an incontrovertible fact. She no longer felt the least lingering mistrust, nor even any prick of jealousy that he had once loved before. That boyish passion of the senses for Elisabeth was not comparable with this love which was the maturer growth of his manhood—a love that could only know fulfillment in the mystic union of body, soul, and spirit.

But this merely served to deepen the poignancy of the impending parting—for that she and Garth must part she recognized as inevitable.

Loving each other as men and women love but once in a lifetime, their love was destined to be for ever unconsummated. They were as irrevocably divided as though the seas of the entire world ran between them.

Wearily, in the flat, level tones of one who realizes that all hope is at an end, she stumbled through the few broken phrases which cancelled the whole happiness of life.

"It all seems so useless, doesn't it—your love and mine? . . . You've killed something that I felt for you—I don't quite know what to call it—respect, I suppose, only that sounds silly, because it was much more than that. I wish—I wish I didn't love you still. But perhaps that, too, will die in time. You see, you're not the man I thought I cared for. You're—you're something I'm ashamed to love—"

"That's enough!" he interrupted unsteadily. "Leave it at that. You won't beat it if you try till doomsday."

The pain in his voice pierced her to the heart, and she made an impulsive step towards him, shocked into quick remorse.

"Garth . . . I didn't mean it!"

"Oh yes, you meant it," he said. "Don't imagine that I'm blaming you. I'm not. You've found me out, that's all. And having discovered exactly how contemptible a person I am, you—very properly—send me away."

He turned on his heel, giving her no time to reply, and a moment later she was alone. Then came the clang of the house door as it closed behind him. To Sara, it sounded like the closing of a door between two worlds—between the glowing past and the grey and empty future.



CHAPTER XXIX

DIVERS OPINIONS

The consternation created at Sunnyside by the breaking off of Sara's engagement had spent itself at last. Selwyn had said but little, only his saint's eyes held the wondering, hurt look that the inexplicable sins of humanity always had the power to bring into them. Characteristically, he hated the sin but overflowed in sympathy for the sinner.

"Poor devil!" he said, when the whole story of Trent's transgression and its consequences had been revealed to him. "What a ghastly stone to hang round a man's neck for the term of his natural life! If they'd shot him, it would have been more merciful! That would at least have limited the suffering," he went on, taking Sara's hand and holding it in his strong, kindly one a moment. "Poor little comrade! Oh, my dear"—as she shrank instinctively—"I'm not going to talk about it—I know you'd rather not. Condolence platitudes were never in my line. But my pal's troubles are mine—just as she once made mine hers."

Jane Crab's opinions were enunciated without fear or favour, and, in defiance of public opinion, she took her stand on the side of the sinner and maintained it unwaveringly.

"Well, Miss Sara," she affirmed, "unless you've proof as strong as 'Oly Writ, as they say, I'd believe naught against Mr. Trent. Bluff and 'ard he may be in 'is manner, but after the way he conducted himself the night Miss Molly ran away, I'll never think no ill of 'im, not if it was ever so!"

Sara smiled drearily.

"I wish I could feel as you do, Jane dear. But—Mrs. Durward knows."

"Mrs. Durward! Huh! One of them tigris women I calls 'er," retorted Jane, who had formed her opinion with lightning rapidity when Elisabeth made a farewell visit to Sunnyside before leaving Monkshaven. "Not but what you can't help liking her, neither," went on Jane judicially. "There's something good in the woman, for all she looks at you like a cat who thinks you're after stealing her kittens. But there! As the doctor—bless the man!—always says, there's good in everybody if so be you'll look for it. Only I'd as lief think that Mrs. Durward was somehow scared-like—too almighty scared to be her natchral self, savin' now and again when she forgets."

To Mrs. Selwyn, the breaking off of Sara's engagement, and the manner of it, signified very little. She watched the panorama of other people's lives unfold with considerably less sympathetic concern than that with which one follows the ups and downs that befall the characters in a cinema drama, since they were altogether outside the radius of that central topic of unfailing interest—herself.

The only way in which recent events impinged upon her life was in so far as the rupture of Sara's engagement would probably mean the indefinite prolongation of her stay at Sunnyside, which would otherwise have ended with her marriage. And this, from Mrs. Selwyn's egotistical point of view, was all to the good, since Sara had acquired a pleasant habit of making herself both useful and entertaining to the invalid.

Molly's emotions carried her to the other extreme of the compass. Since the night when she had realized that she had narrowly missed making entire shipwreck of her life, thanks to the evil genius of Lester Kent, her character seemed to have undergone a change—to have deepened and expanded. She was no longer so buoyantly superficial in her envisagement of life, and the big things reacted on her in a way which would previously have been impossible. Formerly, their significance would have passed her by, and she would have floated airily along, unconscious of their piercing reality.

Side by side with this increase of vision, there had developed a very deep and sincere affection for both Garth and Sara based, probably, in its inception, on her realization that whatever of good, whatever of happiness, life might hold for her, she would owe it fundamentally to the two who had so determinedly kept her heedless feet from straying into that desert from which there is no returning to the pleasant paths of righteousness. A censorious world sees carefully to that, for ever barring out the sinner—of the weaker sex—from inheriting the earth.

So that to this new and awakened Molly the abrupt termination of Sara's engagement came as something almost too overwhelming to be borne. She did not see how Sara could bear it, and to her youthful mind, mercifully unwitting that grief is one of the world's commonplaces, Sara was henceforth haloed with sorrow, set specially apart by the tragic circumstances which had enveloped her. Unconsciously she lowered her voice when speaking to her, infusing a certain specific sympathy into every small action she performed for her, shrank from troubling her in any way, and altogether, in her youth and inexperience, behaved rather as though she were in a house of mourning, where the candles yet burned in the chamber of death and the blinds shut out the light of day.

At last Sara rebelled, although compassionately aware of Molly's excellent intentions.

"Molly, my angel, if you persist in treating me as though I had just lost the whole of my relatives in an earthquake or a wreck at sea, I shall explode. I've had a bad knock, but I don't want it continually rubbing into me. The world will go on—even although my engagement is broken off. And I'm going on."

It was bravely spoken, and though Sara was inwardly conscious that in the last words the spirit, for the moment, outdistanced the flesh, it served to dissipate the rather strained atmosphere which had prevailed at Sunnyside since the rupture of her engagement had become common knowledge.

So, figuratively speaking, the blinds were drawn up and life resumed its normal aspect once again.



It had fallen to the lot of Audrey Maynard to carry the ill-tidings to Rose Cottage. Sara had asked her to acquaint their little circle with the altered condition of affairs, and Audrey had readily undertaken to perform this service, eager to do anything that might spare Sara some of the inevitable pinpricks which attend even the big tragedies of life.

"The whole affair is incomprehensible to me," said Audrey at last, as she rose preparatory to taking her departure. There seemed no object in lingering to discuss so painful a topic. "It's—oh! It's heart-breaking."

Miss Livinia departed hastily to do a little weep in the seclusion of her room upstairs. She hardly concerned herself with the enormity of Garth's offence. She was old, and she saw only romance shattered into fragments, youth despoiled of its heritage, love crucified. Moreover, the Lavender Lady had never been censorious.

"What is your opinion, Miles?" asked Audrey, when she had left the room.

Herrick had been rather silent, his brown eyes meditative. Now he looked up quickly.

"About the funking part of it? As I wasn't on the spot when the affair took place, I haven't the least right to venture an opinion."

Audrey looked puzzled.

"I don't see why not. You can't get behind the verdict of the court-martial."

"Trials have been known where justice went awry," said Miles quietly. "There was a trial where Pilate was judge."

"Do you mean to say you doubt the verdict?"—eagerly.

"No, I was not meaning quite that in this case. But, because the law says a man is a blackguard, when I'd stake my life he's nothing of the kind, it doesn't alter my opinion one hair's-breadth. The verdict may have been—probably, almost certainly, was—the only verdict that could be given to meet the facts of the case. But still, it is possible that it was not a just verdict—labelling as a coward for all time a man who may have had one bad moment when his nerves played him false. There are other men who have had their moment of funk, but, as the matter never came under the official eyes, they have made good since—ended up as V.C.'s, some of 'em. Facts are often very foolish things, to my mind. Motives, and circumstances, even conditions of physical health, are bound to play as big a part as facts, if you're going to administer pure justice. But the army can't consider the super-administration of justice"—smiling. "Discipline must be maintained and examples made. Only—sometimes—it's damn bad luck on the example."

It was an unusually long speech for Miles to have been guilty of, and Audrey stood looking at him in some surprise.

"Miles, you're rather a dear, you know. I believe you're almost as strongly on Garth's side as Jane Crab."

"Is Jane?" And Herrick smiled. "She's a good old sport then. Anyhow, I don't propose to add my quota to the bill Trent's got to pay, poor devil!"

Audrey's face softened as she turned to go.

"One can't help feeling pitifully sorry for him," she admitted. "To have had Sara—and then to have lost her!"

There was a whimsical light in Herrick's eyes as he answered her.

"But, at least," he said, "he has had her, if only for a few days."

Audrey paused with her hand upon the latch of the door.

"I imagine Garth—asked for what he wanted!" she observed, and vanished precipitately through the doorway.

"Audrey!" Miles started up, but, by the time he reached the house door, she was already disappearing through the gateway into the road and beyond pursuit.

"She must have run!" he commented ruefully to himself as he returned to the sitting-room.

This discovery seemed to afford him food for reflection. For a long time he sat very quietly in his chair, apparently arguing out with himself some knotty point.

Nor had his thoughts, at the moment, any connection with the recent discussion of Garth Trent's affairs. It was only after the Lavender Lady had returned, a little pink about the eyelids, that the recollection of the original object of Mrs. Maynard's visit recurred to him.

Simultaneously, his brows drew together in a sudden concentration of thought, and an inarticulate exclamation escaped him.

Miss Livinia looked up from the delicate piece of cobwebby lace she was finishing.

"What did you say, dear?" she asked absently.

"I didn't say anything," he smiled back at her. "I was thinking rather hard, that's all, and just remembered something I had forgotten."

The Lavender Lady looked a trifle mystified.

"I don't think I quite understand, Miles dear."

Herrick, on his way to the door, stooped to kiss her.

"Neither do I, Lavender Lady. That's just the devil of it," he answered cryptically.

He passed out of the room and upstairs, presently returning with a couple of letters, held together by an elastic band, in his hand.

They smelt musty as he unfolded them; evidently they had not seen the light of day for a good many years. But Miles seemed to find them of extraordinary interest, for he subjected the closely written sheets to a first, and second, and even a third perusal. Then he replaced the elastic band round them and shut them away in a drawer, locking the latter carefully.



A couple of days later, Garth Trent received a note from Herrick, asking him to come and see him.

"You haven't been near us for days," it ran. "Remember Mahomet and the mountain, and as I can't come to you, look me up."

The letter, in its quiet avoidance of any reference to recent events, was like cooling rain falling upon a parched and thirsty earth.

Since the history of the court-martial had become common property, Garth had been through hell. It was extraordinary how quickly the story had leaked out, passing from mouth to mouth until there was hardly a cottage in Monkshaven that was not in possession of it, with lurid and fictitious detail added thereto.

The chambermaid at the Cliff Hotel had been the primary source of information. From the further side of the connecting-door of an adjoining room, she had listened with interest to the conversation which had taken place between Elisabeth and Sara on the day following the Haven Woods picnic, and had proceeded to circulate the news with the avidity of her class. Nor had certain gossipy members of the picnic party refrained from canvassing threadbare the significance of the unfortunate scene which had taken place on that occasion—contributory evidence to the truth of the chambermaid's account of what she had overheard.

The whole town hummed with the tale, and Garth had not long been allowed to remain in ignorance of the fact. Anonymous letters reached him almost daily—for it must be remembered that ten years of an aloof existence at Monkshaven had not endeared him to his neighbours. They had resented what they chose to consider his exclusiveness, and, now that it was so humiliatingly explained, the meaner spirits amongst them took this way of paying off old scores.

It was suggested by one of the anonymous writers that Trent's continued presence in the district was felt to be a blot on the fair fame of Monkshaven; and, by another, that should the rumours now flying hither and thither concerning the imminence of a European war materialize into fact, the French Foreign Legion offered opportunities for such as he.

Garth tore the letters into fragments, pitching them contemptuously into the waste-paper basket; but, nevertheless, they were like so many gnats buzzing about an open wound, adding to its torture.

Black Brady, with a lively recollection of the few days in gaol which Trent had procured him in recompense for his poaching proclivities, was loud in his denunciation.

"Retreated, they calls it," he observed, with fine scorn. "Runned away's the plain English of it."

And with this pronouncement all the loafers round the hotel garage cordially agreed, and, subsequently, black looks and muttered comments followed Garth's appearance in the streets.

To all of which Garth opposed a stony indifference—since, after all, these lesser things were of infinitely small moment to a man whose whole life was lying in ruins about him.

"It was good of you to ask me over," he told Herrick, as they shook hands. "Sure you're not afraid of contamination?"

"Quite sure," replied Miles, smiling serenely. "Besides, I had a particular reason for wishing to see you."

"What was that?"

Miles unlocked the drawer where he had laid aside the papers he had perused with so much interest two days ago, and, slipping them out of the elastic bands that held them, handed them to Trent.

"I'd like you to read those documents, if you will," he said.

There was a short silence while Trent's eyes travelled swiftly down the closely written sheets. When he looked up from their perusal his expression was perfectly blank. Miles could glean nothing from it.

"Well?" he said tentatively.

Garth quietly tendered him back the letters.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear, Herrick," was all he vouchsafed.

"Then it isn't true?" asked Miles searchingly.

"It sounds improbable," replied Trent composedly.

Miles reflected a moment. Then, slowly replacing the papers within the elastic band, he remarked—

"I think I'll take Sara's opinion."

If he had desired to break down the other's guard of indifference, he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

Trent sprang to his feet, his hand outstretched as though to snatch the letters back again. His eyes blazed excitedly.

"No! No! You mustn't do that—you can't do that! It's——Oh! You won't understand—but those papers must be destroyed."

Herrick's fingers closed firmly round the papers in question, and he slipped them into the inside pocket of his coat.

"They certainly will not be destroyed," he replied. "I hold them in trust. But, tell me, why should I not show them to Sara? It seems to me the one obvious thing to do."

Trent shook his head.

"No. Believe me, it could do no good, and it might do an infinity of harm."

Herrick looked incredulous.

"I can't see that," he objected.

"It is so, nevertheless."

A silence fell between them.

"Then you mean," said Herrick, breaking it at last, "that I'm to hold my tongue?"

"Just that."

"It is very unfair."

"And if you published that information abroad, it's unfair to Tim. Have you thought of that? He, at least, is perfectly innocent."

"But, man, it's inconceivable—grotesque!"

"Not at all. I gave Elisabeth Durward my promise, and she has married and borne a son, trusting to that promise. My lips are closed—now and always."

"But mine are not."

"They will be, Miles, if I ask it. Don't you see, there's no going back for me now? I can't wipe out the past. I made a bad mistake—a mistake many a youngster similarly circumstanced might have made. And I've been paying for it ever since. I must go on paying to the end—it's my honour that's involved. That's why I ask you not to show those letters."

Miles looked unconvinced.

"I forged my own fetters, Herrick," continued Trent. "In a way, I'm responsible for Tim Durward's existence and I can't damn his chances at the outset. After all, he's at the beginning of things. I'm getting towards the end. At least"—wearily—"I hope so."

Herrick's quick glance took in the immense alteration the last few days had wrought in Trent's appearance. The man had aged visibly, and his face was worn and lined, the eyes burning feverishly in their sockets.

"You're good for another thirty or forty years, bar accidents," said Herrick at last, deliberately. "Are you going to make those years worse than worthless to you by this crazy decision?"

"I've no alternative. Good Lord, man!"—with savage irritability—"you don't suppose I'm enjoying it, do you? But I've no way out. I took a certain responsibility on myself—and I must see it through. I can't shirk it now, just because pay-day's come. I can do nothing except stick it out."

"And what about Sara?" said Herrick quietly. "Has she no claim to be considered?"

He almost flinched from the look of measureless anguish that leapt into the others man's eyes in response.

"For God's sake, man, leave Sara out of it!" Garth exclaimed thickly. "I've cursed myself enough for the suffering I've brought on her. I was a mad fool to let her know I cared. But I thought, as Garth Trent, that I had shut the door on the past. I ought to have known that the door of the past remains eternally ajar."

Miles nodded understandingly.

"I don't think you were to blame," he said. "It's Mrs. Durward who has pulled the door wide open. She's stolen your new life from you—the life you had built up. Trent, you owe that woman nothing! Let me show this letter, and the other that goes with it, to Sara!"

Trent shook his head in mute refusal.

"I can't," he said at last. "Elisabeth must be forgiven. The best woman in the world may lose all sense of right and wrong when it's a question of her child. But, even so, I can't consent to the making public of that letter." He rose and paced the room restlessly. "Man! Man!" he cried at last, coming to a halt in front of Herrick. "Can't you see—that woman trusted me with her whole life, and with the life of any child that she might bear, when she married on the strength of my promise. And I must keep faith with her. It's the one poor rag of honour left me, Herrick!"—with intense bitterness.

There was a long silence. Then, at last, Miles held out his hand.

"You've beaten me," he said sadly. "I won't destroy the letters. As I said, they are a trust. But the secret is safe with me, after this. You've tied my hands."

Trent smiled grimly.

"You'll get used to it," he commented. "Mine have been tied for three-and-twenty years—though even yet I don't wear my bonds with grace, precisely."

He had become once more the hermit of old acquaintance—sardonic, harsh, his emotions hidden beneath that curt indifference of manner with which those who knew him were painfully familiar.

The two men shook hands in silence, and a few minutes later, Herrick, left alone, replaced the letters in the drawer whence he had taken them, and, turning the key upon them, slipped it into his pocket.



CHAPTER XXX

DEFEAT

In remote country districts that memorable Fourth of August, when England declared war on Germany, came and went unostentatiously.

People read the news a trifle breathlessly, reflected with a sigh of contentment on the invincible British Navy, and with a little gust of prideful triumph upon the Expeditionary force—ready to the last burnished button of each man's tunic—and proceeded quietly with their usual avocations.

Then came the soaring Bank Rate, and business men on holiday raced back to London to contend with the new financial conditions and assure their credit. That was all that happened—at first.

Few foresaw that the gaunt, grim Spectre of War had come to dwell in their very midst, nor that soon he would pass from house to house, palace and cottage alike, touching first this man, then that, on the shoulder, with the single word "Come!" on his lips, until gradually the nations, one by one, left their tasks of peace and rose and followed him.

Monkshaven, in common with other seaside towns, witnessed the sudden exodus of City men when the climbing Bank Rate sounded its alarm. Beyond that, the war, for the moment, reacted very little on its daily processes of life. There was no disorganization of amusements—tennis, boating, and bathing went on much as usual, and clever people, proud of their ability to add two and two together and make four of them, announced that it was all explained now why certain young officers in the neighbourhood had been hurriedly recalled a few days previously, and their leave cancelled.

Then came the black news of that long, desperate retreat from Mons, shaking the nation to its very soul, and in the wave of high courage and endeavour that swept responsively across the country, the smaller things began to fall into their little place.

To Sara, stricken by her own individual sorrow, the war came like a rushing, mighty wind, rousing her from the brooding, introspective habit which had laid hold of her and bracing her to take a fresh grip upon life. Its immense demands, the illimitable suffering it carried in its train, lifted her out of the contemplation of her own personal grief into a veritable passion of pity for the world agony beating up around her.

And, with Sara, to compassionate meant to succour. Nor did it require more than the first few weeks of war to demonstrate where such help as she was capable of giving was most sorely needed.

She had been through a course of First Aid and held her certificate, and, thanks to a year in France when she was seventeen—a much-grudged year, at the time, since it had separated her from her beloved Patrick—and to a natural facility for the language, inherited from her French forbears, she spoke French almost as fluently as she did English.

In France they were crying out for nurses, for at that period of the war there was work for any woman who had even a little knowledge plus the grit to face the horrors of those early days, and it was to France that Sara forthwith determined to go.

She had heard that an old friend of Patrick Lovell's, Lady Arronby by name, proposed equipping and taking over to France a party of nurses, and she promptly wrote to her, begging that she might be included in the little company.

Lady Arronby, who had been a sister at a London hospital before her marriage, recollected her old friend's ward very clearly. Sara rarely failed to make a definite impression, even upon people who only knew her slightly, and Lady Arronby, who had known her from her earliest days at Barrow, answered her letter without hesitation.

"I shall be delighted to have you with me," she had written. "Even though you are not a trained nurse, there's work out there for women of your caliber, my dear. So come. It will be a week or two yet before we have all our equipment, but I am pushing things on as fast as I can, so hold yourself in readiness to come at a day's notice."

Meanwhile, Sara's earliest personal encounter with the reality of the war came in a few hurried lines from Elisabeth telling her that Major Durward had rejoined the Army and would be going out to France almost immediately.

Sara thrilled, and with the thrill came the answering stab of the sword that was to pierce her again and again through the long months ahead. Garth Trent—the man she loved—could have no part nor lot in this splendid service of England's sons for England! The country wanted brave men now—not men who faltered when faltering meant failure and defeat.

She had not seen Garth since that day—a million years ago it seemed—when she had sent him from her, and he had gone, admitting the justice of her decision.

There was no getting behind that. She would have defied Elisabeth, defied a whole world of slanderous tongues, had they accused him, if he himself had denied the charge. But he had not been able to deny it. It was true—a deadly, official truth, tabulated somewhere in the records of her country, that the man she loved had been cashiered for cowardice.

The knowledge almost crushed her, and she sometimes wondered if there could be a keener suffering, in the whole gamut of human pain, than that which a woman bears whose high pride in her lover has been laid utterly in the dust.

The dread of danger, separation—even death itself—were not comparable with it. Sara envied the women whose men were killed in action. At least, they had a splendid memory to hold which nothing could ever soil or take away.

Sometimes her thoughts wandered fugitively to Tim. Surely here was his chance to break from the bondage his mother had imposed upon him! He had not written to her of late, but she felt convinced that she would have heard from Elisabeth had he volunteered. She was a little puzzled over his silence and inaction. He had seemed so keen last winter at Barrow, when together they had discussed this very subject of soldiering. Could it be that now, when the opportunity offered, Tim was—evading it? But the thought was dismissed almost as swiftly as it had arisen, and Sara blushed scarlet with shame that the bare suspicions should have crossed her mind, even for an instant, recognizing it as the outcrop of that bitter knowledge which had cut at the very roots of her belief in men's courage.

And there were men around her whose readiness to make the great sacrifice combated the poison of one man's failure. Daily she heard of this or that man whom she knew, either personally or by name, having volunteered and been accepted, and very often she had to listen to Miles Herrick's fierce rebellion against the fact that he was ineligible, and endeavour to console him.

But it was Audrey Maynard who plumbed the full depths of bitterness in Herrick's heart. She had been teaching him to knit, and he was floundering through the intricacies of turning his first heel when one day he surprised her by hurling the sock, needles and all, to the other end of the room.

"There's work for a man when his country's at war! My God! Audrey, I don't know how I'm going to bear it—to lie here on my couch, knitting—knitting!—when men are out there dying! Why won't they take a lame man? Can't a lame man fire a gun—and then die like the rest of 'em?"

Audrey looked at him pitifully.

"My dear, war takes only the best—the youngest and the fittest. But there's plenty of work for the women and men at home."

"For the women and crocks?" countered Miles bitterly.

She smiled at him suddenly.

"Yes—for the crocks, too."

He shook his head.

"No, Audrey, I'm an utterly useless person—a cumberer of the ground."

"Not in my eyes, Miles," she answered quietly.

He met her glance, and read, at last, what—as she told him later—he might have read there any time during the last six months, had he chosen to look for it.

"Do you mean that, Audrey?" he asked, suddenly gripping her hands hard. "All of it—all that it implies?"

She slipped to her knees beside his couch.

"Oh, my dear!" she said, between laughing and crying. "I've been meaning it—'all of it'—for ever so long. Only—only you won't ask me to marry you!"

"How can I? A lame man, and not even a rich one?"

"I believe," said Audrey composedly, "we've argued both those points before—from a strictly impersonal point of view! Couldn't you—couldn't you get over your objection to coming to live with me at Greenacres, dear?"

Audrey always declared, afterwards, that it had required the most blatant encouragement on her part to induce Miles to propose to her, and that, but for the war—which convinced him that he was of no use to any one else—he never would have done so.

Presumably she was able to supply the requisite stimulus, for when the Lavender Lady joined them later on in the afternoon, she found herself called upon to perform that function of sheer delight to every old maid of the right sort—namely, to bestow her blessing on a pair of newly betrothed lovers.

Sara received the news the next morning, and though naturally, by contrast, it seemed to add a keener edge to her own grief, she was still able to rejoice whole-heartedly over this little harvesting of joy which her two friends had snatched from amid the world's dreadful harvesting of pain and sorrow.

By the same post as the radiant letters from Miles and Audrey came one from Elisabeth Durward. She wrote distractedly.

"Tim is determined to volunteer," ran her letter. "I can't let him go, Sara. He is my only son, and I don't see why he should be claimed from me by this horrible war. I have persuaded him to wait until he has seen you. That is all he will consent to. So will you come and do what you can to dissuade him? There is a cord by which you could hold him if you would."

A transient smile crossed Sara's face as she pictured Tim gravely consenting to await her opinion on the matter. He knew—none better!—what it would be, and, without doubt, he had merely agreed to the suggestion in the hope that her presence might ease the strain and serve to comfort his mother a little.

Sara telegraphed that she would come to Barrow Court the following day, and, on her arrival, found Tim waiting for her at the station in his two-seater.

"Well," he said with a grin, as the little car slid away along the familiar road. "Have you come to persuade me to be a good boy and stay at home, Sara?"

"You know I've not," she replied, smiling. "I'm gong to talk sense to Elisabeth. Oh! Tim boy, how I envy you! It's splendid to be a man these days."

He nodded silently, but she could read in his expression the tranquil satisfaction that his decision had brought. She had seen the same look on other men's faces, when, after a long struggle with the woman-love that could not help but long to hold them back, the final decision had been taken.

Arrived at the lodge gates, Tim handed over the car to the chauffeur who met them there, evidently by arrangement.

"I thought we'd walk across the park," he suggested.

Sara acquiesced delightedly. There was a tender, reminiscent pleasure in strolling along the winding paths that had once been so happily familiar, and, hardly conscious of the sudden silence which had fallen upon her companion, her thoughts slipped back to the old days at Barrow when she had wandered, with Patrick beside her in his wheeled chair, along these selfsame paths.