But Stella still remembered with gratitude the warmth of affectionate admiration and sympathy that had melted her coldness on her wedding-day, and something within her, notwithstanding her utter weariness, longed to feel that warmth again.  Though she scarcely realized it, she wanted the clasp of motherly arms, shielding her from the tempest of life.

Tommy, who had met her at Rawal Pindi on the dreadful return journey, had watched over her and cared for her comfort with the utmost tenderness; but Tommy, like Peter, was somehow outside her confidence.  He was just a blundering male with the best intentions.  She could not have opened her heart to him had she tried.  She was unspeakably glad to have him with her, and later on she hoped to join him again at The Green Bungalow down at Kurrumpore where they had dwelt together during the weeks preceding her marriage.  For Tommy was the only relative she had in the world who cared for her.  And she was very fond of Tommy, but she was not really intimate with him.  They were just good comrades.

As a married woman, she no longer feared the veiled shafts of malice that had pierced her before.  Her position was assured.  Not that she would have cared greatly in any case.  Such trivial things belonged to the past, and she marvelled now at the thought that they had ever seriously affected her.  She was changed, greatly changed.  In one short month she had left her girlhood behind her.  Her proud shyness had utterly departed.  She had returned a grave, reserved woman, indifferent, almost apathetic, wholly self-contained.  Her natural stateliness still clung about her, but she did not cloak herself therewith.  She walked rather as one rapt in reverie, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

Mrs. Ralston nearly wept when she saw her, so shocked was she by the havoc that strange month had wrought.  All the soft glow of youth had utterly passed away.  White and cold as alabaster, a woman empty and alone, she returned from the forbidden paradise, and it seemed to Mrs. Ralston at first that the very heart of her had been shattered like a beautiful flower by the closing of the gates.

But later, when Stella had been with her for a few hours, she realized that life still throbbed deep down below the surface, though, perhaps in self-defence, it was buried deep, very far from the reach of all casual investigation.  She could not speak of her tragedy, but she responded to the mute sympathy Mrs. Ralston poured out to her with a gratitude that was wholly unfeigned, and the latter understood clearly that she would not refuse her admittance though she barred out all the world beside.

She was deeply touched by the discovery, reflecting in her humility that Stella’s need must indeed have been great to have drawn her to herself for comfort.  It was true that nearly all her friends had been made in trouble which she had sought to alleviate, but Mary Ralston was too lowly to ascribe to herself any virtue on that account.  She only thanked God for her opportunities.