told herself, struggling
conscientiously against that to which she longed to yield.

And then, making a mockery of the hateful thing of which he had
been accused, her individual knowledge of Garth himself rose up and
confronted her accusingly.

Nothing that she had ever known of him had pointed to any lack of
courage. It had been on no sudden, splendid impulse of a moment that he
had plunged into the sea and fought that treacherous, racing tide off
Devil's Hood Island. Quite composedly, deliberately, he had calculated
the risks--and taken them!

Once more, she recalled the vision of his face as she had seen it
yesterday, in that instant before he had perceived her nearness to
him--strong and steadfast, imprinted with a disciplined nobility--and
the repudiation of his dishonour leapt spontaneously from her lips.

"He didn't do it!"

She had spoken involuntarily, the thought rushing into words before she
was aware, and the sound of her own voice in the darkness startled her.
It seemed almost like a voice from some Otherwhere, authoritatively
assuring her of all she had ached to believe.

She lay back on her pillows, smiling a little at the illusion. But
the sense of peace, of blessed assuredness, remained with her. She had
struggled through the darkness of those bitter months of unbelief, and
now she had come out into the light on the other side. She felt dreamily
contented and at rest, and presently she fell asleep, trustfully, as a
little child may sleep, the smile still on her lips.

With morning came reaction--blank, sordid reaction, depressing her
unutterably.

Amid the score of trifling details incidental to the day's arrangements,
with the usual uninspiring conversation prevalent at the breakfast-table
going on around her, the mood of the previous night, informed, as it had
been, with that triumphant sense of exaltation, slipped from her like a
garment.

Supposing she were to tell them--to tell Selwyn and Molly--that, without
any further evidence, she was convinced of Garth's innocence? Why, they
would think she had gone mad! Regretfully, with infinite pain it might
be, but still none the less conclusively, they had accepted the fact of
his guilt. And indeed, what else could be expected of them, seeing that
he had himself acknowledged it?

And yet--that inner feeling of belief which had stirred into new life
refused to be repressed.

Mechanically she went about the small daily duties which made u