"No, there is more compulsion than that in Harry's case," Hillyard took her up. "Much more! The Clayfords ran in the South African War, and ran badly. They returned to England a disgraced regiment. Now do you see the compulsion?"
Stella Croyle turned the problem over in her mind.
"Yes, I think I do," she said, but still was rather doubtful. Then she looked at the problem through Harry Luttrell's eyes.
"Yes, I understand. The regiment must recover its good name in the next war. It was an obligation of honour on Harry to take his commission in it, to bear his part in the recovery."
"Yes. I told you, didn't I? Harry Luttrell was cradled in tradition."
Hillyard saw Mrs. Croyle's face brighten. Now she had the key to Harry Luttrell. He had joined the Clayfords. And what was his fear at Stockholm? The slovenly soldier! Yes, he had given her the real reason after all during that dinner on the balcony at Hasselbacken. He feared to become the slovenly soldier if he idled longer in England. It was not because he was tired of her, that the separation had come. Thus she reasoned, and she reasoned just in one little respect wrong. She had the real secret without a doubt, that "something else," which Sir Charles Hardiman divined but could not interpret. But she did not understand that Harry Luttrell saw in her, one of the factors, nay the chief of the factors which were converting him into that thing of contempt, the slovenly soldier.
"Thank you," she said to Hillyard with a smile. She stood aside now from the door. "It was kind of you to bring me home and talk with me for a little while."
But it seems that her recovery of spirits did not last out the night. Doubts assailed her—Harry Luttrell was beneath other skies with other preoccupations and no message from him had ever come to her. Even if his love was unchanged at Stockholm, it might not be so now. Hillyard rang her up on the telephone the next morning and warm in his sympathy asked her to lunch with him. But it was a pitiful little voice which replied to him. Stella Croyle answered from her bed. She was not well. She would stay in bed for a day and then go to a little cottage which she owned in the country. She would see Hillyard again next year when he returned from the East.
"Yes, that's her way," said Sir Charles Hardiman. He met Hillyard the day before he sailed for Port Said and questioned him about Stella Croyle discreetly. "She runs to earth when she's unhappy. We shall not see her for a couple of months. No one will."