"Aren't you two coming?"

Both men looked towards the door.

"That side," said Hardiman.

"Yes."

Hardiman nodded his head.

"Stella Croyle doesn't belong either," he said. "But she kicked over the
traces. She flung out of the rank and file. Oh, I know Croyle was a
selfish, dull beast and her footprints in her flight from him were
littered with excuses. I am not considering the injustice of the world.
I am looking at the cruel facts, right in the face of them, as you have
got to do, my young friend. Here Stella Croyle is--with us--and she
can't get away. You can."

Luttrell was not satisfied. His grey eyes and thin, clean features were
troubled like those of a man in physical pain.

"You don't know the strange, queer tie between Stella Croyle and me," he
said. "And I can't tell you it."

Hardiman grew anxious. Luttrell had the look of a man overtrained, and
it was worry which had overtrained him. His face was a trifle too
delicate, perhaps, to go with those remorseless sharp decisions which
must be made by the men who win careers.