ndow as he strode away down the little
tiled path, wondered why love comes so often bearing roses in one hand
and a sharp goad in the other.

CHAPTER XXI

THE PITILESS ALTAR

Elisabeth was pacing restlessly up and down the broad, flagged terrace
at Barrow, impatiently awaiting Tim's return from Monkshaven.

She knew his errand there. He had scarcely needed to tell her the
contents of Sara's letter, so swiftly had she summed up the immediate
connection between the glimpse she had caught of Sara's handwriting and
the shadow on the beloved face.

She moved eagerly to meet him as she heard the soft purr of the motor
coming up the drive.

"Well?" she queried, slipping her arm through his and drawing him
towards the terrace.

Tim looked at her with troubled eyes. He could guess so exactly what her
attitude would be, and he was not going to allow even Elisabeth to say
unkind things about the woman he loved. If he could prevent it, she
should not think them.

Very gently, and with infinite tact, he told her the result of his
interview with Sara, concealing so far as might be his own incalculable
hurt.

To his relief, his mother accepted the facts with unexpected tolerance.
He could not see her expression, since her eyes veiled themselves with
down-dropped lids, but she spoke quite quietly and as though trying
to be fair in her judgment. There was no outward sign by which her son
might guess the seething torrent of anger and resentment which had been
aroused within her.

"But if, as you tell me, Sara doesn't expect to marry this man she cares
for, surely she had been unduly hasty? If he can never be anything to
her, need she set aside all thought of matrimony?"

Tim stared at his mother in some surprise. There was a superficial
worldly wisdom in the speech which he would not have anticipated.

"It seems to me rather absurd," she continued placidly. "Quixotic--the
sort of romantic 'live and die unwed' idea that is quite exploded. Girls
nowadays don't wither on their virgin stems if the man they want doesn't
happen to be in a position to marry them. They marry some one else."

Tim felt almost shocked. From his childhood he had invested his mother
with a kind of rarefied grace of mental and moral qualities commensurate
with her physical beauty, and her enunciation of the cynical creed of
modern times staggered him. It never occurred to him that Elisabeth was
probing round in order to extract a clear idea of Sar