It was then that Patrick Lovell had appeared, coming in response to she knew not what summons, and had taken her away with him.  And the tendrils of her affection, wrenched from their accustomed hold, had twined themselves about this grey-haired, blue-eyed man, set so apart by every soigne detail of his person from the shabby, slip-shod world which Sara had known, but who yet stood beside the bed on which her mother lay, with a wrung mouth beneath his clipped moustache and a mist of tears dimming his keen eyes.

Sara had loved him for those tears.

CHAPTER II

THE PASSING OF PATRICK LOVELL

Autumn had given place to winter, and a bitter northeast wind was tearing through the pines, shrieking, as it fled, like the cry of a lost soul.  The eerie sound of it served in some indefinable way to emphasise the cosy warmth and security of the room where Sara and her uncle were sitting, their chairs drawn close up to the log fire which burned on the wide, old-fashioned hearth.

Sara was engrossed in a book, her head bent low above its pages, unconscious of the keen blue eyes that had been regarding her reflectively for some minutes.

With the passage of the last two months, Patrick’s face seemed to have grown more waxen, worn a little finer, and now, as he sat quietly watching the slender figure on the opposite side of the hearth, it wore a curious, inscrutable expression, as though he were mentally balancing the pros and cons of some knotty point.

At last he apparently came to a decision, for he laid aside the newspaper he had been reading a few moments before, muttering half audibly: 

“Must take your fences as you come to ’em.”

Sara looked up abstractedly.

“Did you say anything?” she asked doubtfully.

Patrick gave his shoulders a grim shake.

“I’m going to,” he replied.  “It’s something that must be said, and, as I’ve never been in favour of postponing a thing just because its disagreeable, we may as well get it over.”

He had focused Sara’s attention unmistakably now.

“What is it?” she asked quickly.  “You haven’t had bad news?”

An odd smile crossed his face.

“On the contrary.”  He hesitated a moment, then continued:  “I had a longish talk with Dr. McPherson yesterday, and the upshot of it is that I may be required to hand in my checks any day now.  I wanted you to know,” he added simply.

It was characteristic of the understanding between these two that Patrick made no effort to “break the news,” or soften it in any way.  He had always been prepared to face facts himself, and he had trained Sara in the same stern creed.

So that now, when he quietly stated in plain language the thing which she had been inwardly dreading for some weeks—­for, though silent on the matter, she had not failed to observe his appearance of increasing frailty—­she took it like a thorough-bred.  Her eyes dilated a little, but her voice was quite steady as she said: