"Oh, my poor boy!" she moaned. "Stella," she said, in a pleading whisper, "give me one word to comfort him—one word?"
Stella turned her eyes upon her; they had reached the gate, the carriage was in sight.
"There is no word that I can send," she said, almost inaudibly. "No word but this—that nothing he can do can save us, that any effort will but add to my misery, and that I pray we may never meet again."
"I cannot tell him that! Not that, Stella!"
"It is the best wish I can have," said Stella, "I do wish it—for myself, and for him. I pray that we never meet again."
Lilian clung to her to the last, even when she had entered the carriage, and to the last there was no tear in the dark sorrowful eyes. White and weary she stood, looking out into the night, worn out and exhausted by the struggle and the storm of pent-up emotion, but fixed and immovable as only a woman can be when she has resolved on self-sacrifice.
A few minutes later, Lilian stood on the threshold of Leycester's room. She had knocked twice, scarcely daring to use her voice, but at last she spoke his name, and he opened the door.
"Lilian!" he said, and he took her in his arms.
"Shut the door," she breathed.
Then she sank on to his breast and looked up at him, all her love and devotion in her sorrowful eyes.