The beaten look of her took the sting of ingratitude out of her words.  She stood between them, her delicate face worn thin, her eyes unnaturally big; she had the strange transparent beauty of people who have been lying for months in a mortal sickness.  Jane Repton’s eyes filled with tears and her hand sought for her handkerchief.

“Let’s see what can be done,” said Repton.  “There’s a mail-steamer of course, but you won’t want to travel by that.”

“No.”

Repton worked out the sailings from Bombay and the other ports on the western coast of India while Stella leaned over his shoulder.

“Look!” he said.  “This is the best way.  There’s a steamer going to Kurrachee to-morrow, and when you reach Kurrachee you’ll just have time to catch a German Lloyd boat which calls at Southampton.  You won’t be home in thirteen days to be sure, but on the other hand you won’t be pestered by curious people.”

“Yes, yes,” cried Stella eagerly.  “I can go to-morrow.”

“Very well.”

Repton looked at the clock.  It was still no more than half-past ten.  He saw with what a fever of impatience Stella was consumed.

“I believe I could lay my hand on the local manager of the line to-night and fix your journey up for you.”

“You could?” cried Stella.  He might have been offering her a crown, so brightly her thanks shone in her eyes.

“I think so.”

He got up from the table and stood looking at her, and then away from her with his lips pursed in doubt.

“Yes?” said she.

“I was thinking.  Will you travel under another name?  I don’t suggest it really, only it might save you—­annoyance.”

Repton’s hesitation was misplaced, for Stella Ballantyne’s pride was quite beaten to the ground.

“Yes,” she said at once.  “I should wish to do that”; and both he and his wife understood from that ready answer more completely than they ever had before how near Stella had come to the big blank wall at the end of life.  For seven years she had held her head high, never so much as whispering a reproach against her husband, keeping with a perpetual guard the secret of her misery.  Pride had been her mainspring; now even that was broken.  Repton went out of the house and returned at midnight.

“It’s all settled,” he said.  “You will have a cabin on deck in both steamers.  I gave your name in confidence to the manager here and he will take care that everything possible is done for you.  There will be very few passengers on the German boat.  The season is too early for either the tourists or the people on leave.”