edibly soft and tender.

"You're mine, now, sweet! Mine to hold just for this once, dear of my
heart!"

No, that couldn't be right, after all, because it wasn't Garth who loved
her. He had only pretended to care for her by way of amusing himself. It
must be Tim who was talking to her--Tim, whom she was going to marry.

Then, suddenly, the mists cleared quite away, and Sara came back to
full consciousness and to the knowledge of where she was and of what had
happened.

Her first instinct, to open her eyes and speak, was checked by a swift,
unexpected movement on the part of Garth. All at once, he had gathered
her up into his arms, and, holding her face pressed close against his
own, was pouring into her ears a torrent of burning, passionate words
of love--love triumphant, worshipping, agonizing, and last of all,
brokenly, desperately abandoning all right or claim.

"And I've got to live without you . . . die without you . . . My God,
it's hard!"

In the darkness and solitude of the night--as he believed, alone with
the unconscious form of the woman he loved in his arms--Garth bared his
very soul. There was nothing hidden any longer, and Sara knew at last
that even as she herself loved, so was she loved again.

CHAPTER XIX

THE JOURNEY'S END

Sara stirred a little and opened her eyes. Deep within herself she was
ashamed of those brief moments of assumed unconsciousness--those moments
which had shown her a strong man's soul stripped naked of all pride and
subterfuge--his heart and soul as he alone knew them.

But, none the less, she felt gloriously happy. Nothing could ever hurt
her badly again. Garth loved her!

Since, for some reason, he himself would never have drawn aside the
veil and let her know the truth, she was glad--glad that she had peered
unbidden through the rent which the stress of the moment had torn in his
iron self-command and reticence. Just as she had revealed herself to
him on the island, in a moment of equal strain, so he had now revealed
himself to her, and they were quits.

"I'm all right," she announced, struggling into a sitting position. "I'm
not hurt."

"Sit still a minute, while I fetch you some brandy from the car." Garth
spoke in a curiously controlled voice.

He was back again in a moment, and the raw spirit made her catch her
breath as it trickled down her throat.

"Thank God we had only just begun to move," he said. "Otherwise you must
have been half-killed."

"Wha