were close upon the house
before Luttrell answered Stella Croyle's message.

"All _that_," he cried, with a sharp gesture as of a man sweeping
something behind him, "all that happened in another age when I was
another man."

The gesture was violent, but the words were pitiful. He was not a man
exasperated by a woman's unseasonable importunity, but angry with the
grim, hard, cruel facts of life.

"It's no good, Martin," he added, with a smile. "Not all the king's
horses nor all the king's men----"

Hillyard was sure now that no little line would ever go from Senga to
the house in the Bayswater Road. The traditions of his house and of his
regiment had Harry Luttrell in their keeping. Messages? Martin Hillyard
might expect them, might indeed respond to and obey them, and with
advantage, just because they came out of the blue. But the men of
tradition, no! The messenger had knocked upon the doors of their
fathers' houses before ever they were born.

At the door of the Governor's house Harry Luttrell stopped.

"I expect you'll want to do some marketing, and I shall be busy, and
to-night we shall have the others with us. So I'll say now," and his
face brightened with a smile, as though here at all events were a matter
where the bitter laws of change could work no cruelties, "it has been
really good to see you again."

Certain excellent memories were busy with them both--Nuneham and Sanford
Lasher and the Cherwell under its overhanging branches. Then Luttrell
looked out across to the Blue Nile and those old wondrous days faded
from his vision.

"I should like you to get away bukra, bukra, Martin," he said.
"Half-past one at the latest, to-morrow morning. Can you manage it?"

"Why, of course," answered Hillyard in surprise.

"You see, I postponed that execution, whilst you were here. I think
it'll go off all right, but since it's no concern of yours, I would just
as soon you were out of the way. I have fixed it for eight. If you start
at half-past one you will be a good many miles away by then."

He turned and went into the house and to his own work. Martin Hillyard
walked down the road along the river bank to the town. Harry Luttrell
had said his last word concerning Stella Croyle. Of that he was sure and
was glad, though Stella's tear-stained face would rise up between his
eyes and the water of the Nile. Sooner or later Harry Luttrell would
come home, bearing his sheaves, and then he would marry amongst his own