“It is n't true,” she insisted, desperately; but her voice was broken, and she sobbed out her words in her fright. “It is n't true! It is n't true! You want to frighten me.” And all at once she ran to Ralph Gowan like a child, and caught hold of his arm with her pretty, shaking hands. “Mr. Gowan,” she said, “you know, don't you? and you won't--you won't--Oh, where is Aimée? I want Aimée! Aimée is n't like the rest of you! _She_ would have made me go home without being so cruel as this.” And the next minute she turned so white and staggered so, that Dolly ran to her, and Gowan was obliged to take her in his arms. “Tell her that what I have said is true,” said Dolly, crying. “She will begin to understand then.” And so, while he held her, panting and sobbing and clinging to him, Gowan told her all that he had learned. He was as brief as possible and as tender as a woman. His heart so warmed toward the pretty, lovable, passionately frightened creature, that his voice was far from steady as he told his story. She did not rebel an instant longer, then. Her terror, under the shock, rendered her only helpless and hysterical. She had so far lost control over herself that she would have believed anything they had chosen to tell her. “Take me away,” she cried, whitening and shivering, all her bright, pretty color gone, all her wilful petulance struck down at a blow. “Take me home,--take me home to Aimée. I want to go away from here before he comes. I want to go home and die.” How they got her down-stairs and into the carriage, Dolly scarcely knows. It was enough that they got her there and knew she was safe. Upon the table in the room above they had left a note directed to Mr. Gerald Chandos,--Dolly had directed it and Dolly had written it. “Is there pen and ink here?” she had asked Gowan; and when he had produced the articles, she had bent over the table and dashed a few lines off with an unsteady yet determined hand. “There!” she had said, when she closed the envelope. “Mr. Chandos will go to Brussels, I think, and he will understand why he goes alone, and, for my part, I incline to the belief that he will not trouble us again.” And in five minutes more they were driving toward Bloomsbury Place. But now the first excitement was over, Dolly's nerve began to fail her. Now that Mollie was safe, she began to think of Griffith. It seemed a cruel trick of fortune's to try his patience so sharply just at this very point. She knew so well what effect his hours of waiting would have upon him. But it was useless to rebel now; so she must bear it as well as she could, and trust to the result of her explanation. Yet despite her hope, every minute of the long drive seemed an age, and she grew feverish and restless and wretched. What if he had not waited, and was not there to listen to what she had to say? Then there would be all the old trouble to face again,--perhaps something worse.