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 sym