"What did you do with them?"
"I went to Oxford."
"You? After those years of independence?"
"It had been my one pa.s.sionate dream for years."
"The Scholar Gipsy," "Thyrsis," the Preface to the "Essays in Criticism," one or two glimpses of the actual city, its grey spires and towers, caught from the windows of a train, had long ago set the craving in his heart. Oxford had grown dim in unattainable mists, no longer a desire so much as a poignant regret, yet now he actually walked its sacred streets.
"And you enjoyed it?" asked Stella.
"I had the most wondrous time," Hillyard replied fervently. "There was one bad evening, when I realised that I couldn"t write poetry. After that I cut my hair and joined the Wine Club. I stroked the Torpid and rowed three in my College Eight. I had friends for the first time. One above all"
He stopped over-abruptly. Stella Croyle had the impression of a careless sentinel suddenly waked, suddenly standing to attention at the door of a treasure-house of memories. She was challenged. Very well. It was her humour to take the challenge up just to prove to herself that she could slip past a man"s guard if the spirit moved her. She turned on Hillyard a pair of most friendly sympathetic eyes.
"Tell me of your friend."
"Oh, there"s not much to tell. He rowed in the same boat with me. He had just what I had not--traditions. From his small old brown manor-house in a western county to his very choice of a career, he was wrapped about in tradition. He went into the army. He had to go."
"What is his name?"
Stella Croyle interrupted him. She was not looking at him any more. She was staring into the fire, and her body was very still. But there was excitement in her voice.
"Harry Luttrell," replied Hillyard, and Stella Croyle did not move. "I don"t know what has become of him. You see, I had ninety pounds left out of the thousand when I left Oxford. So I just dived."
"But you have come up again now. You will resume your friends at the point where you dived."
"Not yet. I am going away in a week"s time."
"For long?"
"Eight months."
"And far?"
"Very."
"I am sorry," said Stella.
It had been the intention of Hillyard to use his first months of real freedom in a great wandering amongst wide s.p.a.ces. The journey had been long since planned, even details of camp outfit and equipment and the calibre of rifles considered.
"I have been at my preparations for years," he said. "I lived in a cubbyhole in Westminster, writing and writing and writing, but when I thought of this journey to be, certain to be, the walls would dissolve, and I would walk in magical places under the sun."
"Now the New Year reviving old desires, The thoughtful soul to solitude retires"
Stella Croyle quoted the verses gaily, and Hillyard, lost in the antic.i.p.ation of his journey, never noticed that the gaiety rang false.
"And where are you going?" she asked.
"To the Sudan."
It seemed that Stella expected just that answer and no other. She gazed into the fire without moving, seeking to piece together a picture in the coals of that unknown country which held all for which she yearned.
"I shall travel slowly up the White Nile to Renk," Hillyard continued, blissfully. He was delighted at the interest which Mrs. Croyle was taking in his itinerary. She was clearly a superior person. "From Renk, I shall cross to the Blue Nile at Rosaires, and travel eastward again to the River Dinder----"
"You are most fortunate," Stella interrupted wistfully.
"Yes, am I not?" cried Hillyard. It looked as if nothing would break through his obtuseness.
"I should love to be going in your place."
"You?"
Hillyard smiled. She was for a mantelshelf in a boudoir, not for a camp.
"Yes--I," and her voice suddenly broke.
Hillyard sprang up from his chair, but Stella held up her hand to check him, and turned her face still further away. Hillyard resumed his seat uncomfortably.
"You may meet your friend Harry Luttrell in the Sudan," she explained.
"He is stationed somewhere in that country--where exactly I would give a great deal to know."
They sat without speaking for a little while, Stella once more turning to the fire. Hillyard watching her wistful face and the droop of her shoulders understood at last the truth of Hardiman"s description. The mask was lain aside. Here indeed was a Lady of Sorrows.
Stella Croyle was silent until she was quite sure that she had once more the mastery of her voice. It was important to her that her next words should not be forgotten. But even so she did not dare to speak above a whisper.
"I want you to do me a favour. If you should meet Harry, I should like him to have news of me. I should like him also--oh, not so often--but just every now and then to write me a little line."
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 pa.s.sed 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.