With morning came reaction—blank, sordid reaction, depressing her unutterably.
Amid the score of trifling details incidental to the day's arrangements, with the usual uninspiring conversation prevalent at the breakfast-table going on around her, the mood of the previous night, informed, as it had been, with that triumphant sense of exaltation, slipped from her like a garment.
Supposing she were to tell them—to tell Selwyn and Molly—that, without any further evidence, she was convinced of Garth's innocence? Why, they would think she had gone mad! Regretfully, with infinite pain it might be, but still none the less conclusively, they had accepted the fact of his guilt. And indeed, what else could be expected of them, seeing that he had himself acknowledged it?
And yet—that inner feeling of belief which had stirred into new life refused to be repressed.
Mechanically she went about the small daily duties which made up life at Sunnyside—interviewed Jane Crab, read the newspapers to Mrs. Selwyn, accomplished the necessary shopping in the town, each and all with a mind that was only superficially concerned with the matter in hand, while, behind this screen of commonplace routine, she felt as though her soul were struggling impotently to release itself from the bonds which had bound it in a tyranny of anguish for twelve long months.
In the afternoon, she paid a visit to the Convalescent Hospital. She made a practice of going there at least once a day and giving what assistance she could. Frequently she relieved Miles of part of his secretarial work, or checked through with him the invoices of goods received. There were always plenty of odd jobs to be done, and, after her strenuous work in France, she found it utterly impossible to settle down to the life of masterly inactivity which Selwyn had prescribed for her.
Audrey greeted her with a little flurry of excitement.
“Do you know that there was a Zepp over Oldhampton last night?” she asked, as they went upstairs together. “Did you hear it?”
Sara shook her head. The memory of the previous night surged over her like the memory of a vivid dream—the absolute assurance it had brought her of Garth's innocence, an assurance which had grown vague and doubtful with the daylight, just as the happenings of a dream grow blurred and indistinct.
“No, I didn't hear anything,” she replied absently. “Did they do much damage? I suppose they were after the munitions factory?”