At last he turned away, as though the passionate question in her face—­the eager, hungry longing to hear her faith confirmed—­were more than he could bear.

“I cannot deny it.”  The words came hoarsely, almost whispered.

Her eyes never left his face.

“I didn’t ask you to deny it,” she persisted doggedly.  “I asked you—­were you guilty?”

Again there fell as heavy silence.  Then, reluctantly, as if the admission were dragged from him, he spoke.

“I’m afraid I can give you no other answer to that question.”

A light like the tender, tremulous shining of dawn broke across Sara’s face.

“Then you weren’t guilty!” she exclaimed, and there was a deep, surpassing joy in her shaken tones.  “I knew it!  I was sure of it.  Oh!  Garth, Garth, what a fool I’ve been!  And oh!  My dear, why did you do it?  Why did you let me go on thinking you—­what it almost killed me to think?”

He stared down at her with wondering, uncertain eyes.

“But I’ve just told you that I can’t deny it!”

She smiled at him—­a smile of absolute content, with a gleam of humour at the back of it.

“I didn’t ask you to deny it.  I asked you to own to it; I tried to make you—­every way.  And you can’t!”

“But—­”

She laid her hand across his mouth—­laughing the tender, triumphant laughter of a woman who has won, and knows that she has.

“You needn’t blacken yourself any longer on my account, Garth.  I shall never again believe anything that you may say against—­the man I love.”

She stood leaning a little towards him, surrender in every line of her slender body, and her face was like a white flame—­transfigured, radiant with some secret, mystic glory of love’s imparting.

With an inarticulate cry he opened wide his arms and she went to him—­swiftly, unerringly, like a homing bird—­and, as he folded her close against his breast and laid his lips to hers, all the hunger and the longing of the empty past was in his kiss.  For the moment, pain and bitterness and regret were swept away in that ecstasy of reunion.

Presently, with a little sigh of spent rapture, she leaned away from him.

“To think we’ve wasted a whole year,” she said regretfully.  “Garth, I wish I had trusted you better!” There was a sweet humility of repentance in her tones.

“I don’t see why you should trust me now,” he rejoined quietly.  “The facts remain as before.”

“Only that the verdict of the court-martial was wrong,” she said swiftly.  “There was some horrible mistake.  I am sure of it—­I know it!  Garth!”—­after a moment’s pause—­“are you going to tell me everything?  I have the right to know—­haven’t I?—­now that I’m going to be your wife.”

She felt the clasp of his arms relax, and, looking up quickly, she saw his face suddenly revert to its old lines of weariness.  Slowly, reluctantly, he drew away from her.