He never meant to come here this afternoon." Stella Croyle was wrong, just as Hillyard had been.

Harry Luttrell had meant to pay his farewell visit to Stella Croyle, knowing well that he was unlikely ever to come back, and understanding that he owed her it.
But an incident drove the whole matter from his thoughts, and the incident was just one instance to show how wide a gulf now separated these two.
He had called at a nursing home close to Portland Place where a Colonel Oakley lay dying of a malignant disease.

Oakley had been the chief spirit of reviving the moral and the confidence of the disgraced Clayfords.

He had laboured unflinchingly to restore its discipline, to weld it into one mind, with dishonour to redeem, and a single arm to redeem it.

He had lived for nothing else--until the internal trouble laid him aside.