Read "The Summons" by A.E.W. Mason online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Stella, the undisciplined! She had flung out of the rank and file, as long ago Sir Charles Hardiman had put it, and to this end she had come, waywardness exacting its inexorable price. Harry Luttrell, however, was not able to lull his conscience with any such easy reflections. He walked with Martin Hillyard apart in the garden.
"I am to blame," he cried. "I took on a responsibility for Stella when I went out of my way to do one kind, foolish thing. Yet, she would have killed herself if I hadn't -- as she has done five years afterwards!. I couldn't leave her when I had brought her home. she was in such misery!. and it couldn't have gone on. Old Hardiman was right about that. It would have ended in a quarrel when unforgivable words would have been used. Yet, perhaps, if that had happened she wouldn't have killed herself. Oh, I don't know!"