But he understood that quite unwittingly he had touched some painful chord in that wayward nature.
"I am going to take you back in my motor-car," he said.

"I'll be downstairs with the breakfast ready." She had probably eaten nothing, he reckoned, since teatime the day before.

Food was the steadying thing she needed now.

He went to the door which Jenny Prask held open for him.
"Don't leave her!" he breathed in a whisper.
Jenny Prask smiled.
"Not me, sir," she said fervently.
Hillyard remembered with comfort some words which she had spoken in appreciation of the loving devotion of her maid.
"In three-quarters of an hour," said Jenny; and later on that morning, with a great fear removed from his heart, Hillyard drove Stella Croyle back to London..