Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter’s house, where he hurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing the taxi-driver to wait below.

“We’ve just time for a few sandwiches before we start,” he said.  He rang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick, authoritative tones.

Nan shook her head.  She felt as though a single mouthful would choke her.  But Peter insisted with a quiet determination she found herself unable to withstand, and gradually the food and wine brought back a little colour into her wan face, though her eyes were still full of a dumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.

She felt dazed and bewildered, as though she were moving in a dream.  Was it really true that she had run away from the man she was to marry and was being brought back by the man who loved her?  The whole affair appeared topsy-turvy and absurd.  She supposed she ought to feel ashamed and overwhelmed, but somehow the only thing that seemed to her to matter was that she had failed of that high ideal of love which Peter had expected of her.  She knew instinctively, despite the grave kindness of his manner, that she had hurt him immeasurably.

“And what are you going to do with me now?” she asked at last, with an odd expression in her face.  She felt curiously indifferent about her immediate future.

Mallory glanced up at her from the time-table he was studying.

“There’s a ten o’clock express which stops at Exeter.  We’re taking you home by that.”

“There’s no connection on to St. Wennys,” remarked Nan impassively.

It didn’t seem to her a matter of great importance.  She merely stated it as a fact.

“No.  But Sandy left his car in Exeter and we shall motor from there.”

“We can all three squash in,” added Sandy.

“We won’t be able to keep Roger ignorant of the fact I’ve been away,” pursued Nan.

“He will know nothing about it,” said Peter quietly.

She looked dubious.

“I think,” she observed slowly, “that you may find it more difficult than you expect—­to manage that.  Someone’s sure to find out and tell him.”

“Not necessarily,” he answered.

“What about the servants?” persisted Nan.  “They’ll hardly allow my arrival at Mallow in the early hours of the morning to pass without comment!  I really think, Peter,” she added with a wry smile, “that it would have been simpler all round if you’d allowed me to run away.”

His eyes sought hers.

“Won’t you trust me, Nan?” he said patiently.  “I’m not going to take you to Mallow to-night.  I’m going to take you to Sandy’s mother.”

“To the mater!”

Sandy fairly gasped with astonishment.

Eliza, narrow-minded and pre-eminently puritanical in her views, was the very last person in the world whose help he would have thought of requisitioning in the present circumstances.