She never knew how she was taken home. A horrible dream of half-conscious misery, of dreadful movement when all she wanted was to lie down and be still, of a confusion of sights and sounds, things dimly seen in strange unnatural motion, voices all broken into one bewildering hum, always that sense of being taken somewhere where she did not want to go, when quiet and silence was all she desired, interposed between the rocky plateau of the shore, and her room, in which she opened her eyes in the evening in the waning light to find Janet and her maid by her bedside, her windows wide open to admit the air, and Beaufort in consultation with the doctor at the other end of the room. She had opened her eyes for a minute or two before everything settled into its place, and she perceived fully where she was. She lay in great weakness, but no pain, remembering nothing, feeling the soft all-enveloping peace which had been round her like a mantle, covering all her wounds again. ‘Are you there, my Den: and is that Edward?’ she said. And it was not till some time after, till the soft shaded lights were lit in the room and all quiet, and Beaufort seated by her bedside reading to her, that she suddenly remembered what had passed. She put out her thin hand and grasped him by the arm. ‘Edward, was that true?’ ‘What, Carry? Nothing has happened but that you have been ill a little, and now you are better, my love, and you must be quiet, very quiet.’ ‘It _is_ true,’ she said, with her fingers clasping his arm. ‘My son did that; _my_ son.’ ‘It is put all right,’ said Beaufort; ‘there is no deadly wrong done. And the girl is very young; she can be trained. Carry, my love!’ ‘Yes, I know. I must keep quiet, and I will. I can put everything out of my thoughts now. God has given me the power. But he meant _that_, Edward.’ ‘God knows what he meant,’ said Beaufort. ‘He did not realise. Half the harm these boys do is that they never realise--’ ‘You say women are often unjust. Would men--look over that?’ He got up from his chair and put down his book. ‘You must not question me,’ he said, ‘you must not think of it at all. Put it out of your thoughts altogether, my dear love. You must think of the rest of us--of me, and poor little Janet.’ He added, after a moment, ‘no one need ever know.’ Certainly Beaufort was very kind. He behaved in all this like a true gentleman and true lover. He would have plucked out altogether the sting of that great wound had it been possible, and he was quite unaware of the other stings he had himself planted undermining her strength. She looked up at him, lying there in her weakness, with her beautiful smile coming back, the smile which was so soft, so indulgent, so tender, so all-forgiving, the smile that meant despair. What could she do more, that gentle, shipwrecked creature, unable to contend with the wild seas and billows that went over her head? What had she ever been able to do?