It must have been," answered Hillyard.

"Oh, she had thought out her plan to its last detail.

She knew the letter might not be enough.
So, whilst we were all dancing at Harrel, she sat alone from ten to midnight in that library, waiting for the telephone to ring, hoping perhaps--for all we know--at the bottom of her heart that it would not ring.

But it did, and she answered." The picture rose vividly before them all.

Harrel, with its lighted ball-room and joyous dancers on the one side; the silent library on the other, with Stella herself in all her finery, sitting with her haggard eyes fixed upon the telephone, whilst the slow minutes passed.
"That's terrible," said Millie Splay in a low voice; and such a wave of pity swept over the four people that for a long while no further word was said.