When at last the Selwyns’ house was reached, it was with a manifest effort that she roused herself sufficiently to answer Garth’s quiet apology for the misadventure of the afternoon.

“If it was your fault that we got stranded on the island,” she said, summoning up rather a wan smile, “it is, at all events, thanks to you that I shall be sleeping under a respectable roof, instead of scandalizing half the neighbourhood!” She paused, then went on uncertainly:  “‘Thank you’ seems ludicrously inadequate for all you’ve done—­”

“I’ve done nothing,” he interrupted brusquely.

“You risked your life—­”

An impatient exclamation broke from him.

“And if I did?  I risked something of no value, I assure you—­to myself, or any one else.”

Then he added practically—­

“Get Jane Crab to give you some hot soup and go to bed.  You look absolutely done.”

Sara nodded, smiling more naturally.

“I will,” she said.  “Good-night, then.”  She held out her hand a little nervously.

He took it, holding it closely in his, and looking down at her with the strange expression of a man who strives to impress upon his mind the picture of a face he may not see again, so that in a lonely future he shall find comfort in remembering.

“Good-bye!” he said, at last, very gravely.  Then a queer little smile, half-bitter, half-tender, curving his lips, he added:  “I shall always have this one day for which to thank whatever gods there be.”

CHAPTER XII

A REVOKE

Sara lay long awake that night.  Under Jane Crab’s bluff and kindly ministrations, her feeling of utter bodily exhaustion had given place to an exquisite sense of mental and physical well-being, and, freed from the shackles of material discomfort, her thoughts flew backward over the events of the day.

All was well—­gloriously, blessedly well!  There could be no misunderstanding that brief, passionate moment when Garth had held her in his arms; and the blinding anguish of those hours which had followed, when she had not known whether he were alive or dead, had shown her her own heart.

Love had come to her—­the love which Patrick Lovell had called the one altogether good and perfect gift—­and with it came a tremulous unrest, a shy sweetness of desire that crept through all her veins like the burning of a swift flame.

She felt no fear or shame of love.  Sara would never be afraid of life and its demands, and it seemed to her a matter of little moment that Garth had made no conventional avowal of his love.  She did not, on that account, pretend, even to herself, as many women would have done, that her own heart was untouched, but recognized and accepted the fact that love had come to her with absolute simplicity.

Nor did she doubt or question Garth’s feeling for her.  She knew, in every fibre of her being, that he loved her, and she was ready to wait quite patiently and happily the few hours that must elapse before he could come to her and tell her so.