The little group composed of Audrey, Sara, and Garth had joined the main party now, and Garth was shaking eager, outstretched hands and laughingly tossing back the shower of chaff which greeted his tardy arrival.

Then Sara, laying her hand on his arm, steered him towards Elisabeth.  Some one who had been standing a little in front of the latter, screening her from Trent’s view, moved aside as they approached.

“Garth, let me introduce you to Mrs. Durward.”

The smile that would naturally have accompanied the words was arrested ere it dawned, and involuntarily Sara drew back before the instant, startling change in Garth’s face.  It had grown suddenly ashen, and his eyes were like those of a man who, walking in some pleasant place, finds all at once, that a bottomless abyss has opened at his feet.

For a full moment he and Elisabeth stared at each other in a silence so vital, so pregnant with some terrible significance, that it impacted upon the whole prevailing atmosphere of care-free jollity.

A sudden muteness descended on the party, the laughing voices trailing off into affrighted silence, and in the dumb stillness that followed Sara was vibrantly conscious of the hostile clash of wills between the man and woman who had, in a single instant, become the central figures of the little group.

Then Elisabeth’s voice—­that amazingly sweet voice of hers—­broke the profound quiet.

“Mr.—­Trent”—­she hesitated delicately before the name—­“and I have met before.”

And quite deliberately, with a proud, inflexible dignity, she turned her back upon him and moved away.

Sara never forgot the few moments that followed.  She felt as though she were on the brink of some crisis in her life which had been slowly drawing nearer and nearer to her and was now acutely imminent, and instinctively she sought to gather all her energies together to meet it.  What it might be she could not guess, but she was sure that this declared enmity between the man she loved and the woman who was her friend preluded some menace to her happiness.

Her eyes sought Garth’s in horror-stricken interrogation.

“What is it?  What does she mean?” she demanded swiftly, in a breathless undertone, instinctively drawing aside from the rest of the party.

He laughed shortly.

“She means mischief, probably,” he replied.  “Mrs. Durward is no friend of mine.”

Sara’s eyes blazed.

“She shall explain,” she exclaimed impetuously, and she swung aside, meaning to follow Elisabeth and demand an explanation of the insult.  But Garth checked her.

“No,” he said decidedly.  “Please do nothing—­say nothing.  For Audrey’s sake we can’t have a scene—­here.”

“But it’s unpardonable——­”

“Do as I say,” he insisted.  “Believe me, you will only make things worse if you interfere.  I will make my apologies to Audrey and go.  For my sake, Sara”—­he looked at her intently—­“go back and face it out.  Behave as if nothing had happened.”