"Once--and for the last time," she said, in a low voice. "Henceforth we must be strangers." "Not that, Stella; that is impossible, knowing what we do!" "Yes, it must be," was the low, calm response. "I could not bear it. There must be nothing to remind me of--him," and her lips quivered. Lilian's head drooped. "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. "Oh, my poor darling," she murmured. He started and drew her to the light. "What is it! Where have you been?" he asked, and there was a faint sound of hope in his voice, a faint light in his haggard face, as she whispered-- "I have seen her!" "Seen her--Stella?" And his voice quivered on the name. "Yes. Oh, Ley! Ley!" His face blanched. "Well!" he said, hoarsely. "Ley, my poor Ley! there is no hope." His grasp tightened on her arm. "No hope!" he echoed wearily. She shook her head. "Ley, I do not wonder at you loving her! She is the type of all that is beautiful and noble----" "You--you torture me!" he said, brokenly. "So good and true and noble," she continued, sobbing; "and because she is all this and more you must learn to bear it, Ley!" He smiled bitterly. "You must bear it, Ley; even as she bears it----" "Tell me what it is," he broke in, hoarsely. "Give me something tangible to grapple with, and--well, then talk to me of bearing it!" "I cannot--she cannot," she replied, earnestly, solemnly. "Even to me, heart to heart, she could not open her lips. Ley! Fate is against you--you and her. There is no hope, no hope! I feel it; I who would not have believed it, did not believe it even from you! There is no hope, Ley!" He let her sink into a chair and stood beside her, a look on his face that was not good to see.