“Mine, then, I perceive to be the highest type of courage,” chuckled Sara.  “It’s a comforting reflection.”

It was, when propounded by Patrick Lovell, to whom physical fear was an unknown quantity.  Had he lived in the days of the Terror, he would assuredly have taken his way to the guillotine with the same gay, debonair courage which enabled the nobles of France to throw down their cards and go to the scaffold with a smiling promise to the other players that they would continue their interrupted game in the next world.

And when Sara had come to live with Patrick, a dozen years ago, he had rigorously inculcated in her youthful mind a contempt for every form of cowardice, moral and physical.

It had not been all plain sailing, for Sara was a highly strung child, with the vivid imagination that is the primary cause of so much that is carelessly designated cowardice.  But Patrick had been very wise in his methods.  He had never rebuked her for lack of courage; he had simply taken it for granted that she would keep her grip of herself.

Sara’s thoughts slid back to an incident which had occurred during their early days together.  She had been very much alarmed by the appearance of a huge mastiff who was permitted the run of the house, and her uncle, noticing her shrinking avoidance of the rather formidable looking beast, had composedly bidden her take him to the stables and chain him up.  For an instant the child had hesitated.  Then, something in the man’s quiet confidence that she would obey had made its claim on her childish pride, and, although white to the lips, she had walked straight up to the great creature, hooked her small fingers into his collar, and marched him off to his kennel.

Courage under physical pain she had learned from seeing Patrick contend with his own infirmity.  He suffered intensely at times, but neither groan nor word of complaint was ever allowed to escape his set lips.  Only Sara would see, after what he described as “one of my damn bad days, m’dear,” new lines added to the deepening network that had so aged his appearance lately.

At these times she herself endured agonies of reflex suffering and apprehension, since her attachment to Patrick Lovell was the moving factor of her existence.  Other girls had parents, brothers and sisters, and still more distant relatives upon whom their capacity for loving might severally expend itself.  Sara had none of these, and the whole devotion of her intensely ardent nature lavished itself upon the man whom she called uncle.

Their mutual attitude was something more than the accepted relationship implied.  They were friends—­these two—­intimate friends, comrades on an equal footing, respecting each other’s reserves and staunchly loyal to one another.  Perhaps this was accounted for in a measure by the very fact that they were united by no actual bond of blood.  That Sara was Patrick’s niece by adoption was all the explanation of her presence at Barrow Court that he had ever vouchsafed to the world in general, and it practically amounted to the sum total of Sara’s own knowledge of the matter.