the springy turf, for he made no movement, but
remained absorbed in his thoughts, unconscious of her presence.

Sara halted as though transfixed. For an instant the whole world seemed
to rock, and a black mist rose up in front of her, blotting out that
solitary figure at the gateway. Her heart beat in great, suffocating
throbs, and her throat ached unbearably, as if a hand had closed upon
it and were gripping it so tightly that she could not breathe. Then
her senses steadied, and her gaze leapt to the face outlined in profile
against the cold background of the winter sky.

Her searching eyes, poignantly observant, sensed a subtle difference in
it--or, perhaps, less actually a difference than a certain emphasizing
of what had been before only latent and foreshadowed. The lean face was
still leaner than she had known it, and there were deep lines about the
mouth--graven. And the mouth itself held something sternly sweet and
austere about the manner of its closing--a severity of self-discipline
which one might look to see on the lips of a man who has made the
supreme sacrifice of his own will, bludgeoning his desires into
submission in response to some finely conceived impulse.

The recognition of this, of the something fine and splendid that had
stamped itself on Garth's features, came to Sara in a sudden blazoning
flash of recognition. This was not--could not be the face of a weak man
or a coward! And for one transcendent moment of glorious belief sheer
happiness overwhelmed her.

But, in the same instant, the damning facts stormed up at her--the
verdict of the court-martial, the details Elisabeth had supplied,
above all, Garth's own inability to deny the charge--and the light of
momentary ecstasy flared and went out in darkness.

An inarticulate sound escaped her, forced from her lips by the pang of
that sudden frustration of leaping hope, and, hearing it, Garth turned
and saw her.

"Sara!" The name rushed from his lips, shaken with a tumult of emotion.
And then he was silent, staring at her across the little space that
separated them, his hand gripping the topmost bar of the gate as though
for actual physical support.

The calm of his face, that lofty serenity which had been impressed upon
it, was suddenly all broken up.

"Sara!" he repeated, a ring of incredulity in his tones.

"Yes," she said flatly. "I've come back."

She moved towards him, trying to control the trembling that had seized
her limbs.

"