“That’s enough!” he interrupted unsteadily.  “Leave it at that.  You won’t beat it if you try till doomsday.”

The pain in his voice pierced her to the heart, and she made an impulsive step towards him, shocked into quick remorse.

“Garth . . .  I didn’t mean it!”

“Oh yes, you meant it,” he said.  “Don’t imagine that I’m blaming you.  I’m not.  You’ve found me out, that’s all.  And having discovered exactly how contemptible a person I am, you—­very properly—­send me away.”

He turned on his heel, giving her no time to reply, and a moment later she was alone.  Then came the clang of the house door as it closed behind him.  To Sara, it sounded like the closing of a door between two worlds—­between the glowing past and the grey and empty future.

CHAPTER XXIX

DIVERS OPINIONS

The consternation created at Sunnyside by the breaking off of Sara’s engagement had spent itself at last.  Selwyn had said but little, only his saint’s eyes held the wondering, hurt look that the inexplicable sins of humanity always had the power to bring into them.  Characteristically, he hated the sin but overflowed in sympathy for the sinner.

“Poor devil!” he said, when the whole story of Trent’s transgression and its consequences had been revealed to him.  “What a ghastly stone to hang round a man’s neck for the term of his natural life!  If they’d shot him, it would have been more merciful!  That would at least have limited the suffering,” he went on, taking Sara’s hand and holding it in his strong, kindly one a moment.  “Poor little comrade!  Oh, my dear”—­as she shrank instinctively—­“I’m not going to talk about it—­I know you’d rather not.  Condolence platitudes were never in my line.  But my pal’s troubles are mine—­just as she once made mine hers.”

Jane Crab’s opinions were enunciated without fear or favour, and, in defiance of public opinion, she took her stand on the side of the sinner and maintained it unwaveringly.

“Well, Miss Sara,” she affirmed, “unless you’ve proof as strong as ’Oly Writ, as they say, I’d believe naught against Mr. Trent.  Bluff and ’ard he may be in ’is manner, but after the way he conducted himself the night Miss Molly ran away, I’ll never think no ill of ’im, not if it was ever so!”

Sara smiled drearily.

“I wish I could feel as you do, Jane dear.  But—­Mrs. Durward knows.”

“Mrs. Durward!  Huh!  One of them tigris women I calls ’er,” retorted Jane, who had formed her opinion with lightning rapidity when Elisabeth made a farewell visit to Sunnyside before leaving Monkshaven.  “Not but what you can’t help liking her, neither,” went on Jane judicially.  “There’s something good in the woman, for all she looks at you like a cat who thinks you’re after stealing her kittens.  But there!  As the doctor—­bless the man!—­always says, there’s good in everybody if so be you’ll look for it.  Only I’d as lief think that Mrs. Durward was somehow scared-like—­too almighty scared to be her natchral self, savin’ now and again when she forgets.”