"Yes. It will need to visit the doctor before I can ride it again," she said, and turned a look of regret on the damaged machine. "So will you, by the look of things," he remarked, and scrutinised her more closely. Prudence leaned down to take her farewell of, and recompense the sisters, who, sober enough now, watched the proceedings with interest. "I'll send out for the cycle to-morrow," she said. But Major Stotford saw no necessity for leaving the cycle behind. "It will go in the back all right. We might as well take it along," he said, and lifted it into the car. Lizzie, considerably more obliging than heretofore, lent a hand. When he had settled the machine he took his seat beside Prudence. "Anyone we pass will conclude that I've run you down, and that I'm taking home the pieces," he said, smiling at her with curious intimacy, as the car took the long hill, and the girl leaned back white and weary against the cushions. He drew a flask from his pocket and handed it to her. "Don't look so horrified. If you could see the colour of your face you would realise as surely as I do that this is what you need. Take a good pull at it and you'll feel better." "I begin to believe that the lamp on my bicycle must once have belonged to Aladdin," Prudence said with a quiet little laugh of enjoyment. "I rubbed it to some purpose in the dust of the road. Whatever I require appears." Major Stotford laughed with her. The thought in his mind, which he was careful not to express in words, was that she carried the magic within her. He leaned forward and altered the pace of the car, which had been running at top speed. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. "And now," Major Stotford remarked, as he turned in at the gates of Court Heatherleigh and drove slowly along the smooth gravelled path which led to the house, "for explanations. Beastly things, explanations, eh? Can't see the necessity for them myself." He scrutinised the white face which, even in its pallor, and despite the worried expression which he observed settled upon it as they drew near her home, looked extraordinarily fresh and sweet. He had enjoyed the ten mile drive exceedingly. Had he not believed that his companion was enduring more discomfort than she would allow, he could have wished that the distance had been greater. He was a man who appreciated feminine society, and he had derived considerable pleasure as the result of an act of careless good-nature from which he had not anticipated enjoyment. It had been a new and agreeable experience. He determined that he would see her again. The slight service he had been able to render her gave him that much right at least, he decided.