I never met Luttrell.

He was away down in Khordofan when I was on the White Nile." Stella Croyle had turned a little away from Hillyard when she put the question; and she sat now with her face averted for a long while.
Nothing broke the silence but the ticking of the clock.
"I am sorry," said Hillyard.
No doubt her disappointment was bitter.

She had counted very much, no doubt, on this chance of the two men meeting; on her message reaching her lover, and a "little word" now and again from him coming to her hands.

Some morning she would wake up and find an envelope in the familiar writing waiting upon the tray beside her tea--that, no doubt, had been the hope which she had lived on this many a day.

Hillyard was not fool enough to hold that he understood either the conclusions at which women arrived, or the emotions by which they jumped to them.