rength conveyed
by the rippling play of muscle beneath the white skin of his arms,
bared to the elbow, and by the pliant swing of his body to each sure,
rhythmical stroke.

She recollected that one of her earliest impressions concerning him had
been of the sheer force of the man--the lithe, flexible strength like
that of tempered steel--and she wondered whether this were entirely due
to his magnificent physique or owed its impulse, in part, to some
mental quality in him. Her eyes travelled reflectively to the lean,
square-jawed face, with its sensitive, bitter-looking mouth and its fine
modeling of brow and temple, as though seeking there the answer to her
questionings, and with a sudden, intuitive instinct of reliance, she
felt that behind all his cynicism and surface hardness, there lay a
quiet, sure strength of soul that would not fail whoever trusted it.

Yet he always spoke as though in some way his life had been a
failure--as though he had met, and been defeated, by a shrewd blow of
fate.

Sara found it difficult to associate the words failure and defeat with
her knowledge of his dominating personality and force of will, and the
natural curiosity which had been aroused in her mind by his strange
mode of life, with its deliberate isolation, and by the aroma of mystery
which seemed to cling about him, deepened.

Her brows drew together in a puzzled frown, as she inwardly sought for
some explanation of the many inconsistencies she had encountered even in
the short time that she had known him.

His abrupt alterations from reticence to unreserved; his avowed dislike
of women and the contradictory enjoyment which he seemed to find in
her society; his love of music and of beautiful surroundings--alike
indicative of a cultivated appreciation and experience of the good
things of this world--and the solitary, hermit-like existence which he
yet chose to lead--all these incongruities of temperament and habit wove
themselves into an enigma which she found impossible to solve.

"Here we are!"

Garth's voice recalled her abruptly from her musings to find that the
_Betsy Anne_ was swaying gently alongside a little wooden landing-stage.

"But how civilized!" she exclaimed. "One does not expect to find a jetty
on a desert-island."

Trent laughed grimly.

"Devil's Hood is far from being a desert island in the summer, when the
tourists come this way. They swarm over it."

Whilst he was speaking, he had made fast the pai