The tone of the last words touched Tressady deeply. Evidently she could hardly restrain her tears. "They were not worthy you should go and speak to them," he said quickly. "Besides, it was only a noisy minority." She did not speak again till they drew up before the house in the Mile End Road. Then she turned to him. "I was to have stayed here for the night, but I think I must go home. Aldous might hear that there had been a disturbance. I will leave a message here, and drive home." "I trust you will let me go with you. We should none of us be happy to think of you as alone just yet. And I am due at the House by eleven." She smiled, assenting, then descended, leaning heavily upon him in her weakness. When she reappeared, attended by her two little servants, all frightened and round-eyed at their mistress's mishap, she had thrown a thick lace scarf round her head, which hid the bandage and gave to her pale beauty a singularly touching, appealing air. "I wish I could see Madeleine," she said anxiously, standing beside the cab and looking up the road. "Ah!" For she had suddenly caught sight of a cab in the distance driving smartly up. As it approached, Naseby and Lady Madeleine were plainly to be seen inside it. The latter jumped out almost at Marcella's feet, looking more scared than ever as she saw the bandage and the black scarf twisted round the white face. But in a few moments Marcella had soothed her, and given her over, apparently, to the care of another lady staying in the house. Then she waved her hand to Naseby, who, with his usual coolness, asked no questions and made no remarks, and she and Tressady drove off. "Madeleine will stay the night," Marcella explained as they sped towards Aldgate. "That was our plan. My secretary will look after her. She has been often here with me lately, and has things of her own to do. But I ought not to have taken her to-night. Lady Kent would never have forgiven me if she had been hurt. Oh! it was all a mistake--all a great mistake! I suppose I imagined--that is one's folly--that I could really do some good--make an effect." She bit her lip, and the furrow reappeared in the white brow. Tressady felt by sympathy that her heart was all sore, her moral being shaken and vibrating. After these long months of labour and sympathy and emotion, the sudden touch of personal brutality had unnerved her. Mere longing to comfort, to "make-up," overcame him. "You wouldn't talk of mistake--of failing--if you knew how to be near you, to listen to you, to see you, touches and illuminates some of us!" His cheek burnt, but he turned a manly, eager look upon her. Her cheek, too, flushed, and he thought he saw her bosom heave. "Oh no!--no!" she cried. "How _impossible!_--when one feels oneself so helpless, so clumsy, so useless. Why couldn't I do better? But perhaps it is as well. It all prepares one--braces one--against--"