And again:  “I suppose no man can be dead sure of himself—­always.”

The implication was too horribly clear to be evaded.

He had told her, moreover, that he was a man who had made a shipwreck of his life, that in a moment of folly—­a moment of funk she knew now to be the veridical description!—­he had flung away the whole chances of his life.  The man whom she had loved, and, in her love, idealized, had proved himself, when the test came, that most despicable of things, a coward!  The pain of realization was almost unbearable.

Suddenly, across the utter desolation of the moment there shot a single ray of hope.  She turned triumphantly to Elisabeth.

“But if it were true that Garth—­had shown cowardice, why was he not shot?  They shoot men for cowardice”—­grimly.

“There are many excuses to be made for him, Sara,” replied Elisabeth gently.

“Excuses!  For cowardice!” The low-spoken words were icy with a biting contempt.  “I’m afraid I could not find them.”

“The court-martial did, nevertheless.  At the trial, the ’prisoner’s friend’—­in this instance, Garth’s colonel, who was very fond of him and had always thought very highly of him—­pleaded extenuating circumstances.  Garth’s youth, his previous good record, the conditions of the moment—­the continuous mental and physical strain of the days preceding his sudden loss of nerve—­all these things were urged by the ‘prisoner’s friend,’ and the sentence was commuted to one of cashiering.”

“It would have been better if he had been shot,” said Sara dully.  Then suddenly she clapped both hands to her mouth.  “Ah—­h!  What am I saying?  Garth! . . .  Garth! . . .”

She stumbled to her feet, her white, ravaged face turned for a moment yearningly towards Far End, where it stood bathed in the mocking morning sunlight.  Then she spun half-round, groping for support, and fell in a crumpled heap on the floor.

When Sara came to herself again, she was lying on the bed in Elisabeth’s room at the hotel.  Some one had drawn the blinds, shutting out the crude glare of the sunlight, and in the semi-darkness she could feel soft hands about her, bathing her face with something fragrantly cool and refreshing.  She opened her eyes and looked up to find Elisabeth’s face bent over her—­unspeakably kind and tender, like that of some Madonna brooding above her child.

“Are you feeling better?” The sweet, familiar voice roused her to the realization of what had happened.  It was the same voice that, before unconsciousness had wrapped her in its merciful oblivion, had been pouring into her ears an unbelievably hideous story—­a nightmare tale of what had happened at some far distant Indian outpost.

The details of the story seemed to be all jumbled confusedly together in Sara’s mind, but, as gradually full consciousness returned, they began to sort themselves and fall into their rightful places, and all at once, with a swift and horrible contraction of her heart, the truth knocked at the door of memory.