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.