Stella turned round to face Lady Verny.
"No," she said firmly; "neither of us must do that. I don't know why Julian has done this at all, but it is quite plain that he does not want to be interfered with. He wishes to act alone, and I think he must act alone. I shall not write to him or try to see him."
"But, my dear child," exclaimed Lady Verny, "how, if we enter into this dreadful conspiracy of silence, can anything come right?"
"I don't know," said Stella, quietly; "but Julian let it go wrong quite by himself, and I think it must come right, if it comes right at all, in the same way. If it didn't, he would distrust it. I shouldn't—I should be perfectly happy just to see him; but, then, you see, I know it's all right. Julian doesn't. Seeing me wouldn't make it so; it would simply make him give in, and go on distrusting. We couldn't live like that. You see, I don't know what has happened; but I do know what he wants, so I think I must do it."
"But you don't think this state of things is what he wants, do you?" Lady Verny demanded. "I may of course be mistaken, but up till now I have been able to judge fairly well what a man wanted of a woman when he couldn't take his eyes off her face."
"He wants me more than that," said Stella, proudly. "I think he wants me very nearly—not quite—as much as I want him. That's why I couldn't make him take less than he wanted. To take me and not trust me would be to take less. If we leave him quite alone for six months or a year, perhaps, he'll have stopped shutting his mind up against his feelings. It might be safer then to make an appeal to him; but I shouldn't like to appeal to him. Still, I don't say I won't do anything you think right, dear Lady Verny, if you want me to, to make him happier; only I must be sure that it will make him happier first. I know now that it wouldn't."
"You're the most extraordinary creature!" said Lady Verny. "Of course I always knew you were, but it's something to be so justified of one's instincts. I'm not sure that I sha'n't do precisely what you say—for quite different reasons. Julian will count on one of us disobeying his injunctions, and he'll be perfectly exasperated not to have news of you. Well, exasperation isn't going to do any man any harm; it'll end by jerking him into some common-sense question, if nothing else will."
Stella smiled, but she shook her head.
"Please don't hope," she said under her breath.
"There's one thing," Lady Verny said after a short pause, "that I do ask you to be sensible about. I can't take you abroad, as there hardly seems at the present time any abroad to take you to, but I want you to come and live with me. I think, after all this, I really rather need a companion."