“But, Sara, surely—surely you can't still have any thought of marrying Garth Trent?” There was a hint of something like terror in her voice.
“No,” Sara responded wearily. “No, I shall never marry—Garth Trent.”
“Then why won't you—why can't you—”
“Marry Tim?”—quietly. “Because, although I shall never marry Garth now, I haven't stopped loving him.”
“Do you mean that you can still care for him—now that you know what kind of man he is?”
“Oh! Good Heavens, Elisabeth!”—the irritation born of frayed nerves hardened Sara's voice so that it was almost unrecognizable—“you can't turn love on and off as you would a tap! I shall never marry anybody now. Tim understands that, and—you must understand it, too.”
There was no mistaking her passionate sincerity. The truth—that Sara would never, as long as she lived, put another in the place Garth Trent had held—seemed borne in upon Elisabeth that moment.
With a strangled cry she sank back into her chair, and her eyes, fixed on Sara's small, stern-set face, held a strange, beaten look. As she sat there, her hands gripping the chair-arms, there was something about her whole attitude that suggested defeat.
“So it's all been useless—quite useless!” she muttered in a queer, whispering voice.
She was not looking at Sara now. Her vision was turned inward, and she seemed to be utterly oblivious of the other's presence. “Useless!” she repeated, still in that strange, whispering tone.