It came upon her like a blow—the cudgel-stroke of Fate. So there was to be no escape after all! A sense of suffocation came upon her, and she turned sharply to the window, instinctively seeking air. Blind for a moment, she leaned there, gathering her strength. Behind her she heard the doctor’s voice. “Now take it quietly! Don’t let yourself be overcome! There’s no need. The little one isn’t suffering, and—please God—she won’t suffer. It’s only her anxiety about you that’s worrying her. She’s not used to worry, you know. She’s only a baby.” His voice shook a little. “But if you could just go to her—set her mind at rest—you’d never be sorry. You’ve had a hard life, Miss Thorold, but you’ve got a soft heart. And sometimes, you know, when we are throwing a line to others, the tide turns in our favour and we find we’re drifting in to our own desired haven as well.” His words reached her through a great chaos of emotions. She leaned against the window-frame with closed eyes, seeing herself as driftwood upon the tide of which he spoke. To go back to Tetherstones, to face again the torment from which she had barely escaped, to feel the grey walls enclosing her once more and all the sinister influences that had, as it were, stretched out and around her to draw her down! She lifted her face to the soft grey sky with an inarticulate prayer for help. She heard again the doctor’s voice behind her, and realized that he was pleading for something very near his heart. Was not little Ruth near to the hearts of all who knew her? “It won’t be for very long,” he was saying. “She’s fretting her heart out for you because she had got hold of the idea that you are in danger—frightened—unhappy. No one can set her mind at rest except you, and it would be a kindness to them all at Tetherstones to go and do it. You would like to do them a kindness, Miss Thorold?” That moved her. Very suddenly all her doubt and hesitation were swept away. To do them a kindness—these people who had brought her back from the gates of death, who had sheltered her, cared for her, comforted her in her extremity! What mattered anything besides? What was her pride compared with this? What though her very heart were pierced by the ordeal? She could not shirk it now. It was as though an answer had come to that half-formed prayer of hers. Whatever the outcome, she had no choice but to go back. With a sharp, catching breath, she turned. “I will go—of course,” she said. “How can I get there?” He smiled at her with instant relief, and she realized that he had hardly expected to gain his point. She wondered how much he knew regarding her sudden departure. It was evident that he understood that she had a very strong reason for not wishing to return. He got up. “Well, as I said, you’ll never regret it,” he said. “As to getting there, Oliver’s in the town now with the cart. Do you mind going back with him? It may be for a few days, you know. You’re prepared for that?”