lyard apart in the garden.

"I am to blame," he cried. "I took on a responsibility for Stella when I
went out of my way to do one kind, foolish thing.... Yet, she would have
killed herself if I hadn't--as she has done five years afterwards!... I
couldn't leave her when I had brought her home ... she was in such
misery!... and it couldn't have gone on.... Old Hardiman was right about
that.... It would have ended in a quarrel when unforgivable words would
have been used.... Yet, perhaps, if that had happened she wouldn't have
killed herself.... Oh, I don't know!"

Martin Hillyard had never seen Harry Luttrell so moved or sunk in such
remorse. He did not argue, lest he should but add fuel to this high
flame of self-reproach. Life had become so much easier as a problem with
him, so much inner probing and speculation and worry about small
vanities had been smoothed away since he had been engaged day after day
in a definite service which was building up by a law deduced here, an
inspired formula there, a tradition for its servants. The service, the
tradition, would dissolve and blow to nothing, when peace came again.
Meanwhile there was the worth of traditional service made clear to him,
in an indifference to the little enmities which before would have hurt
and rankled, in a freedom from doubt when decision was needed, above all
in a sort of underlying calm which strengthened as his life became more
turbulently active.

"It's a clear principle of life which make the difference," he said,
hesitating, because to say even so much made him feel a prig. "Stella
just drifted from unhappiness to unhappiness----"

But Harry Luttrell had no attention to give to him.

"I simply couldn't have gone on," he cried. "It wasn't a question of my
ruin or not.... It was simply beyond me to go on.... There were other
things more powerful.... You know! I once told you on the river above
Kennington Island.... Oh, my God, I am in such a tangle of argument--and
there she is up there--only thirty, and beautiful--such a queer, wayward
kid--'like a child sleeping.'"

He quoted Sir Chichester's phrase, and hurried away from his friend.

"I shall be back in a little while," he muttered. His bad hour was upon
him, and he must wrestle with it alone.

Martin Hillyard returned to the hall, and found Sir Chichester with the
doctor, a short, rugged Scotsman. Dr. McKerrel was saying:

"There's nothing whatever for me to do, Sir Chichester," he said. "T