He leaned forward with his hands clenched, and saw pass in the bright
coals glimpses of the long tale of days when endeavour was fruitless and
hopes were disappointed. "Success! Lord, how I wanted it!" he whispered.

Stella Croyle looked at him with a smile.

"It was sure to come to you, since you wanted it enough," she said.

"Yes, but in time?" exclaimed Hillyard.

"In time for what?"

Hillyard broke into a laugh.

"I don't know," he answered. He was silent for a little while, and the
comfort of the room, the quiet of the night, the pleasant sympathy of
Stella Croyle, all wrought upon him. "I don't know," he repeated slowly.
"I am waiting. But out of my queer life something more has got to
come--something more and something different. I have always been sure of
it, but I used to be afraid that the opportunity would come while I was
still chained to the handles of the barrow."

Hillyard's life, though within a short time its vicissitudes had been
many and most divergent, had probably not been as strange as he imagined
it to be. He looked back upon it with too intense an interest to be its
impartial judge. Certainly its distinctive feature had escaped him
altogether. At the age of twenty-nine he was a man absolutely without
tradition.

His father, a partner in a small firm of shipping agents which had not