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