y much for women. I have
very few friends amongst them. And so I am losing--every one." She held
out her hand to him in sympathy. "But if I were a man and had been
turned down by the doctors, I don't think that I could stay. I should
go like you and hide."

She smiled and poured out two cups of tea.

"That is a habit of yours, even though you are not a man," Hillyard
replied.

"What do you mean?"

"You run away and hide."

Stella looked at her visitor in surprise.

"Who told you that?"

"Sir Charles Hardiman."

Stella Croyle was silent for a few moments.

"Yes, that's true," and she laughed suddenly. "When things go wrong, I
become rather impossible. I have often made up my mind to live entirely
in the country, but I never carry the plan out."

She let Hillyard drink his tea and light a cigarette before she
approached the question which was torturing her.

"You had a good time in the Sudan!" she began. "Lots of heads?"

"Yes. I had a perfect time."

"And your friend? Captain Luttrell. Did you meet him?"

Hillyard had pondered on the answer which he would give to her when she
asked that question. If he answered, "Yes,"--why, then he must go on, he
must tell her something of what passed between Luttrell and himself, how
he delivered his message and what answer he received. Let him wrap that
answer up in words, however delicate and vague, she would see straight
to the answer. Her heart would lead her there. To plead forgetfulness
would be merely to acknowledge that he slighted her; and she would not
believe him. So he lied.

"No. I never met Luttrell. He was away down in Khordofan when I was on
the White Nile."

Stella Croyle had turned a little away from Hillyard when she put the
question; and she sat now with her face averted for a long while.
Nothing broke the silence but the ticking of the clock.

"I am sorry," said Hillyard.

No doubt her disappointment was bitter. She had counted very much, no
doubt, on this chance of the two men meeting; on her message reaching
her lover, and a "little word" now and again from him coming to her
hands. Some morning she would wake up and find an envelope in the
familiar writing waiting upon the tray beside her tea--that, no doubt,
had been the hope which she had lived on this many a day. Hillyard was
not fool enough to hold that he understood either the conclusions at
which women arrived, or the emotions by which they jumped to them. But
he attributed these ho