ility on myself--and I must see it through. I can't
shirk it now, just because pay-day's come. I can do nothing except stick
it out."

"And what about Sara?" said Herrick quietly. "Has she no claim to be
considered?"

He almost flinched from the look of measureless anguish that leapt into
the others man's eyes in response.

"For God's sake, man, leave Sara out of it!" Garth exclaimed thickly.
"I've cursed myself enough for the suffering I've brought on her. I was
a mad fool to let her know I cared. But I thought, as Garth Trent, that
I had shut the door on the past. I ought to have known that the door of
the past remains eternally ajar."

Miles nodded understandingly.

"I don't think you were to blame," he said. "It's Mrs. Durward who has
pulled the door wide open. She's stolen your new life from you--the life
you had built up. Trent, you owe that woman nothing! Let me show this
letter, and the other that goes with it, to Sara!"

Trent shook his head in mute refusal.

"I can't," he said at last. "Elisabeth must be forgiven. The best woman
in the world may lose all sense of right and wrong when it's a question
of her child. But, even so, I can't consent to the making public of that
letter." He rose and paced the room restlessly. "Man! Man!" he cried at
last, coming to a halt in front of Herrick. "Can't you see--that woman
trusted me with her whole life, and with the life of any child that she
might bear, when she married on the strength of my promise. And I
must keep faith with her. It's the one poor rag of honour left me,
Herrick!"--with intense bitterness.

There was a long silence. Then, at last, Miles held out his hand.

"You've beaten me," he said sadly. "I won't destroy the letters. As
I said, they are a trust. But the secret is safe with me, after this.
You've tied my hands."

Trent smiled grimly.

"You'll get used to it," he commented. "Mine have been tied for
three-and-twenty years--though even yet I don't wear my bonds with
grace, precisely."

He had become once more the hermit of old acquaintance--sardonic, harsh,
his emotions hidden beneath that curt indifference of manner with which
those who knew him were painfully familiar.

The two men shook hands in silence, and a few minutes later, Herrick,
left alone, replaced the letters in the drawer whence he had taken them,
and, turning the key upon them, slipped it into his pocket.

CHAPTER XXX

DEFEAT

In remote country districts that me