was all the war had left her, she recognized this,
and, since she was normally a woman of kind and generous impulses, she
suffered in the realization of the spoiled and mutilated lives for which
she was responsible.

Not that she would have acted differently were the same choice presented
to her again. She did not _want_ to hurt people, but the primitive
maternal instinct, which was the pivot of her being, blinded her to the
claims of others if those claims reacted adversely on her son.

Only now, in the bitterness of defeat, as she looked back upon her
midnight interview with Garth Trent, she was conscious of a sick
repugnance. It had not been a pleasant thing, that thrusting of a knife
into an old wound. This, too, she had done for Tim's sake. The pity of
it was that Garth had suffered needlessly--uselessly!

She had thought the issue of events hung solely betwixt him and her son,
and, with her mind concentrated on this idea, she had overlooked the
possibility of any other outcome. But the acceptance of an unexpected
sequence had been forced upon her--Sara would never marry any one now!
Elisabeth recognized that all her efforts had been in vain.

And the supreme bitterness, from which all that was honest and upright
within her shrank with inward shame and self-loathing, lay in the fact
that she, above all others, owed Garth Trent--that which he had begged
of her in vain--the tribute of silence concerning the past.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE FURNACE

As Sara took her seat on board the train for Monkshaven, she was
conscious of that strange little thrill of the wanderer returned which
is the common possession of the explorer and of the school-girl at their
first sight of the old familiar scenes from which they have been exiled.

She could hardly believe that barely a year had elapsed since she had
quitted Monkshaven. So many things had happened--so many changes taken
place. Audrey had been transformed into Mrs. Herrick; Tim had been
given a commission; and Molly, the one-time butterfly, was now become
a working-bee--a member of the V.A.D. and working daily at Oldhampton
Hospital. Sara could scarcely picture such a metamorphosis!

The worst news had been that of Major Durward's death--he had been
killed in action, gallantly leading his men, in the early part of the
year. Elisabeth had written to Sara at the time--a wonderfully brave,
simple letter, facing her loss with a fortitude which Sara, remembering
her adorat