North to embark in their
boats for Gaul and Rome."

"They took my captain with them?" cried Stella, laughing with him at
the conceit.

"Yes, so my fable ran. He pined for the circus and the theatre and the
painted ladies, so he went willingly."

"The brute," cried Stella. "And so I broke my heart over a decadent
philanderer in a suit of bright brass clothes and remember it thirteen
hundred years afterwards in another life! Thank you, Captain Hazlewood!"

"No, you don't actually remember it, Stella, but you have a feeling that
round about Stane Street you once suffered great humiliation and
unhappiness." And suddenly Stella rode swiftly past him, but in a moment
she waited for him and showed him a face of smiles.

"You see I have crossed Stane Street to-day, Dick," she said. "We'll ride
on to Arundel."

"Yes," answered Dick, "my story won't do," and he remembered a sentence
of hers spoken an hour and a half ago: "My thoughts do not go back as far
as you think."

At all events she was emancipated to-day, for they rode on until at the
end of a long gentle slope the great arch of the gate into Arundel Park
gleamed white in a line of tall dark trees.

CHAPTER XXI

THE LETTER IS WRITTEN

But Stella's confidence did not live long. Mr. Hazlewood was a child at
deceptions; and day by day his anxieties increased. His friends argued
with him--his folly and weakness were the themes--and he must needs repel
the argument though his thoughts echoed every word they used. Never was a
man brought to such a piteous depth of misery by the practice of his own
theories. He sat by the hour at his desk, burying his face amongst his
papers if Dick came into the room, with a great show of occupation. He
could hardly bear to contemplate the marriage of his son, yet day and
night he must think of it and search for expedients which might put an
end to the trouble and let him walk free again with his head raised high.
But there were only the two expedients. He must speak out his fears that
justice had miscarried, and that device his vanity forbade; or he must
adopt Pettifer's suggestion, and from that he shrank almost as much. He
began to resent the presence of Stella Ballantyne and he showed it.
Sometimes a friendliness, so excessive that it was almost hysterical,
betrayed him; more usually a discomfort and constraint. He avoided her
if by any means he could; if he could not quite avoid her an excuse of
business was always on