"Very well, I'll come--if you're sure Mrs. Maynard won't object to the introduction of a complete stranger."

Sara regarded her affectionately.

"Have you ever met any one who 'objected' to you yet?" she asked with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

Elisabeth made no answer. Instead, she pointed to the Monk's Cliff, where the grey stone of Far End gleamed in the sunlight against its dark background of trees.

"Who lives there?" she asked. Sara's eyes followed the direction of her hand, and she smiled.

"_I'm_ going to live there," she answered. "That's Garth's home."

"Oh-h!" Elisabeth drew a quick breath. "It's a grim-looking place," she added, after a moment. "Rather lonely, I should imagine."

"Garth is fond of solitude," replied Sara simply, and she missed the swift, searching glance instantly leveled at her by the hyacinth eyes.

When at length she took her departure, it was with a promise to return later on with Molly and Dr. Selwyn, so that they could all four walk out to Haven Woods together--since the doctor had undertaken to get through his morning's rounds in time to join the picnicking party.

Elisabeth accompanied her visitor to the head of the stairs, and then, returning to her room, stepped out on to the balcony once more. For a long time she stood leaning against the bal.u.s.trade, gazing thoughtfully across the bay to that lonely house on the slope of the cliff.

"Garth Trent!" she murmured. "_Trent_! . . . And eyes with patches of blue in them! . . . Heavens! Can it possibly be? _Can_ it be?"

There was a curious quality in her voice, a blending of incredulity and distaste, and yet something that savoured of satisfaction--almost of triumph.

Across her mental vision flitted a memory of just such eyes--gay, laughing, love-lit eyes, out of which the laughter had been suddenly dashed.

CHAPTER XXV

THE CUT DIRECT

It was a merry party which had gathered together in the shady heart of Haven Woods. The Selwyns, Sara and Elisabeth, Miles Herrick and the Lavender Lady were all there, and, in addition, there was a large and light-hearted contingent from Greenacres, where Audrey was entertaining a houseful of friends. Only Garth had not yet arrived.

Two young subalterns on leave and a couple of pretty American sisters, all of them staying at Greenacres, were making things hum, n.o.bly seconded in their efforts by Miles Herrick, who had practically recovered from his sprained ankle and one of whose "good days" it chanced to be.

Every one seemed bubbling over with good-humour and high spirits, so that the dell re-echoed to the shouts of jolly laughter, while the birds, flitting nervously hither and thither, wondered what manner of creatures these were who had invaded their quiet sanctuary of the woods.

And presently, when the whole party gathered round the white cloth, spread with every dainty that the inspired mind of Audrey's chef had been able to devise, and the popping corks began to punctuate the babble of chattering voices, they took wing and fled incontinently. They had heard similar sharp, explosive sounds before, and had noted them as being generally the harbingers of sudden death.

"Where's that wretched hermit of yours, Sara?" demanded Audrey gaily.

"I told him we should lunch at one, and it's already a quarter-past.

Ah!"--catching sight of a lean, supple figure advancing between the trees--"Here he is at last!"

A shout greeted Garth's approach, and the uproarious quartette composed of the two subalterns and the girls from New York City pounded joyously with their forks upon their plates, creating a perfect pandemonium of noise, Miles recklessly partic.i.p.ating in the clamorous welcome, while the Lavender Lady fluttered her handkerchief, and Sara and Audrey both hurried forward to meet the late comer. In the general excitement n.o.body chanced to observe the effect which Trent's appearance had had upon one of the party.

Elisabeth had half-risen from the gra.s.sy bank on which she had been sitting, and her face was suddenly milk-white. Even her lips had lost their soft rose-colour, and were parted as if an exclamation of some kind had been only checked from pa.s.sing them by sheer force of will.

Out of her white face, her eyes, seeming so dark that they were almost violet, stared fixedly at Garth as he approached. Their expression was as masked, as enigmatical as ever, yet back of it there gleamed an odd light, and it was as though some curious menace lay hidden in its quiet, slumbrous fire.

The little group composed of Audrey, Sara, and Garth had joined the main party now, and Garth was shaking eager, outstretched hands and laughingly tossing back the shower of chaff which greeted his tardy arrival.

Then Sara, laying her hand on his arm, steered him towards Elisabeth.

Some one who had been standing a little in front of the latter, screening her from Trent's view, moved aside as they approached.

"Garth, let me introduce you to Mrs. Durward."

The smile that would naturally have accompanied the words was arrested ere it dawned, and involuntarily Sara drew back before the instant, startling change in Garth's face. It had grown suddenly ashen, and his eyes were like those of a man who, walking in some pleasant place, finds all at once, that a bottomless abyss has opened at his feet.

For a full moment he and Elisabeth stared at each other in a silence so vital, so pregnant with some terrible significance, that it impacted upon the whole prevailing atmosphere of care-free jollity.

A sudden muteness descended on the party, the laughing voices trailing off into affrighted silence, and in the dumb stillness that followed Sara was vibrantly conscious of the hostile clash of wills between the man and woman who had, in a single instant, become the central figures of the little group.

Then Elisabeth's voice--that amazingly sweet voice of hers--broke the profound quiet.

"Mr.--Trent"--she hesitated delicately before the name--"and I have met before."

And quite deliberately, with a proud, inflexible dignity, she turned her back upon him and moved away.

Sara never forgot the few moments that followed. She felt as though she were on the brink of some crisis in her life which had been slowly drawing nearer and nearer to her and was now acutely imminent, and instinctively she sought to gather all her energies together to meet it. What it might be she could not guess, but she was sure that this declared enmity between the man she loved and the woman who was her friend preluded some menace to her happiness.

Her eyes sought Garth's in horror-stricken interrogation.

"What is it? What does she mean?" she demanded swiftly, in a breathless undertone, instinctively drawing aside from the rest of the party.

He laughed shortly.

"She means mischief, probably," he replied. "Mrs. Durward is no friend of mine."

Sara's eyes blazed.

"She shall explain," she exclaimed impetuously, and she swung aside, meaning to follow Elisabeth and demand an explanation of the insult. But Garth checked her.

"No," he said decidedly. "Please do nothing--say nothing. For Audrey's sake we can't have a scene--here."

"But it's unpardonable----"

"Do as I say," he insisted. "Believe me, you will only make things worse if you interfere. I will make my apologies to Audrey and go. For my sake, Sara"--he looked at her intently--"go back and face it out. Behave as if nothing had happened."

Compelled, in spite of herself, by his insistence, Sara reluctantly a.s.sented and, leaving him, made her way slowly back to the others.

A disjointed buzz of talk sprayed up against her ears. Every one rushed into conversation, making valiant, if quite fruitless efforts to behave as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, while, a little apart from the main group, Elisabeth stood alone.

Meanwhile Trent sought out his hostess, and together they moved away, pausing at last beneath the canopy of trees.

"No words can quite meet what has just occurred," he said formally. "I can only express my regret that my presence here should have occasioned such a _contretemps_."

Although the whole brief scene had been utterly incomprehensible to her, Audrey intuitively sensed the bitter hurt underlying the harshly spoken words, and the outraged hostess was instantly submerged in the friend.

"I am so sorry about it, Garth," she said gently, "although, of course, I don't understand Mrs. Durward's behaviour."