apprehension, since her attachment to Patrick Lovell was the moving
factor of her existence. Other girls had parents, brothers and sisters,
and still more distant relatives upon whom their capacity for loving
might severally expend itself. Sara had none of these, and the whole
devotion of her intensely ardent nature lavished itself upon the man
whom she called uncle.

Their mutual attitude was something more than the accepted relationship
implied. They were friends--these two--intimate friends, comrades on an
equal footing, respecting each other's reserves and staunchly loyal to
one another. Perhaps this was accounted for in a measure by the very
fact that they were united by no actual bond of blood. That Sara was
Patrick's niece by adoption was all the explanation of her presence at
Barrow Court that he had ever vouchsafed to the world in general, and
it practically amounted to the sum total of Sara's own knowledge of the
matter.

Hers had been a life of few relationships. She had no recollection of
any one who had ever stood towards her in the position of a father, and
though she realized that the one-time existence of such a personage must
be assumed, she had never felt much curiosity concerning him.

The horizon of her earliest childhood had held but one figure, that of
an adored mother, and "home" had been represented by a couple of
meager rooms at the top of a big warren of a place known as Wallater's
Buildings, tenanted principally by families of the artisan class.

Thus debarred by circumstances from the companionship of other children,
Sara's whole affections had centred round her mother, and she had
never forgotten the sheer, desolating anguish of that moment when the