voice more to himself than to the nurse. "What he did for us!
Pretty hard treatment, eh?"

Luttrell left the home with one thought filling his mind--the regiment.
It had got to justify all Oakley's devotion; it had got somehow to make
amends to him, even if he never was to know of it, for this last unfair
stroke of destiny. Luttrell walked across London, dwelling upon the
qualities of individual men in the company which was his command--how
this man was quick, and that man stupid, and that other inclined to
swank, and a fourth had a gift for reading maps, and a fifth would make
a real marksman; and so he woke up to find himself before the bookstall
in the station at Waterloo. Then he remembered the visit he had
promised, but there was no longer any time. He took the train to the New
Forest, and three days later went to France.

But of Luttrell's visit to Colonel Oakley, Stella Croyle never knew.
And, again, very likely it would not have mattered if she had. They were
parted too widely for insight and clear vision.

* * * * *

Hillyard carried away with him a picture of Stella's haunted and
despairing face. It was over against him as he dined at his club,
gleaming palely from out of darkness, the lips quivering, the eyes sad
with all the sorrows of women. He could blame neither the one nor the
other--neither Stella Croyle nor Harry Luttrell. One heart called to the
other across too wide a gulf, and this heart on the hither side was
listening to quite other voices and was deaf to her cry for help. But
Hillyard was on the road along which Millicent Splay had already
travelled. More and more he felt the case for compassion. He carried the
picture of Stella's face home with him. It troubled his sleep; by
constant gazing upon it he became afraid....

He waked with a start to hear a question whispered at his ear. "Where is
she? How has she passed this night?" The morning light was glimmering
between the curtains. The room was empty. Yet surely those words had
been spoken, actually spoken by a human voice.... He took his telephone
instrument in his hand and lifted the receiver. In a little while--but a
while too long for his impatience--his call was acknowledged at the
exchange. He gave Stella Croyle's number and waited. Whilst he waited he
looked at his watch. The time was a quarter past seven.

An unfamiliar and sleepy voice answered him from her house.

"Will you put me on to Mrs. Croyl