pped like a delicate lady in a muddy street. Hillyard found
it a little difficult to concentrate his thoughts on Stella Croyle's
message. But he would have delivered it awkwardly in any case. He had
seen enough of Harry Luttrell last night to understand that an ocean now
rolled between those two.

"On the first night of my play, 'The Dark Tower,'" he began, and
suddenly faced around as the ostrich fell back.

"Yes!" said Luttrell, and he eyed the ostrich indifferently. "That
animal's a brute, isn't he?"

He took a threatening step towards it, and the ostrich sidled away as if
it really didn't matter to him where he took his morning walk.

"Yes?" Luttrell repeated.

"I went to a supper-party given by Sir Charles Hardiman."

"Oh?"

Luttrell's voice was careless enough. But his eyes went watchfully to
Hillyard's face, and he seemed to shut suddenly all expression out of
his own.

"Hardiman introduced me to a friend of yours."

Luttrell nodded.

"Mrs. Croyle?"

"Yes."

"She was well?"

"In health, yes!"

"I am very glad." Unexpectedly some feeling of relief had made itself
audible in Luttrell's voice. "It would have troubled me if you had
brought me any other news of her. Yes, that would have troubled me very
much. I should not have been able to forget it," he said slowly.

"But she is unhappy."

Luttrell walked on in silence. His forehead contracted, a look of
trouble came into his face. Yet he had an eye all the while for the
movements of the animals in the zareba. At last he halted, struck out
at the ostrich with his stick, and turned to Hillyard with a gesture of
helplessness.

"But what can one do--except the single thing one can't do?"

"She gave me a message, if I should chance to meet you," answered
Hillyard.

Luttrell's face hardened perceptibly.

"Let me hear it, Martin."

"She said that she would like you to have news of her, and that from
time to time she would like to have a little line from you."

"That was all?"

"Yes."

Harry Luttrell nodded, but he made no reply. He walked back with
Hillyard to the door of the zareba, and the ostrich bore them company,
now on this side, now on that. The elephant was rolling in the grass
like a dog, the giraffes crowded about the little door like beggars
outside a restaurant. The two friends walked back towards the town in an
air shimmering with heat. The Blue Nile glittered amongst its sand-banks
like so many ribands of molten steel. They