There were tears glistening on her dark eyelashes.  Hillyard fell into a sort of panic as he reflected upon his own vaunting talk.  Compared with this woman’s poignant distress, all the vicissitudes of his life seemed now quite trivial and small.  Here were tears falling and Hillyard was unused to tears.  Nor had he ever heard so poignant a longing in any human voice as that on which Stella’s prayer to him was breathed.  He was ashamed.  He was also a little envious of Harry Luttrell.  He was also a little angry with Harry Luttrell.

“You won’t forget?”

Stella clasped her hands together imploringly.

“No,” Hillyard replied.  “Be very sure of that, Mrs. Croyle!  If I meet Luttrell he shall have your message.”

“Thank you.”

Stella Croyle dried the tears from her cheeks and stood up.

“I have been foolish.  You won’t find me like that again,” she cried, and she helped Hillyard on with his coat.  She went to the door to see him out, but stopped as she grasped the handle.

All Hillyard’s talk about himself had passed in at one ear and out at the other.  But every word which he had spoken about Harry Luttrell was written on her heart.  And one phrase had kindled a tiny spark of hope.  She had put it aside by itself, wanting more knowledge about it, and meaning to have that knowledge before Hillyard departed.  She put her question now, with the door still closed and her back to it.

“You said that Harry had to join the army.  What did you mean by that?”

Hillyard hesitated.

“Did he not tell you himself?”

“No.”

Hillyard stood between loyalty to his friend and the recollection of Stella Croyle’s tears.  If Luttrell had not told her—­why then——­

“Then I don’t well see how I can,” he said uncomfortably.

“But I want to know,” said Stella, bending her brows at him in astonishment that he should refuse her so small a thing.  Then her manner changed.  “Oh, I do want to know,” she cried, and Hillyard’s obstinacy broke down.

Men have the strangest fancies which compel them to do out of all reason, even the things which they hate to do, and to put aside what they hold most dear.  Fancies unintelligible to practical people like women—­thus Stella Croyle’s thoughts ran—­but to be taken note of very carefully.  High-flown motives from a world of white angels, where no doubt they are very suitable.  But men will use them as working motives here below, with the result that they wreck women’s hearts and cause themselves a great deal of useless misery.

Stella’s hopes and her self-esteem had for long played with the thought that it might possibly be one of those impracticable notions which had whipped Harry Luttrell up to the rupture of their alliance; that after all, it was not that he was tired of a chain.  Yes, she wanted to know.

“Luttrell only told me once, only spoke about it once,” said Hillyard shifting from one foot to the other.  “The week after the eights.  We rowed down to Kennington Island in a racing pair, had supper there——­”