She--she was fond of you, wasn't she?
Oh"-- with a quick gesture of her small brown hands--"she _must_ have been!" "I don't know so much about the 'must have been,'" Roger had admitted ruefully.

"She cared--once--for someone else." "Who was it ?" Isobel's question shot out as swiftly as the tongue of an adder.
"I can't tell you," he answered reluctantly.

He wished to God he could! That other unknown man of whom, from the very beginning, he had been unconsciously afraid! He was actively, consciously jealous of him now.
Then Isobel's subdued, shocked tones recalled him from his thoughts.
"Oh, Roger, Nan couldn't--she would never have run away to be--with him ?" She had given words to the very fear which had been lurking at the back of his mind from the moment he had read the briefly-worded note which Nan had left for him.
Throughout the night this belief had grown and deepened within him, and with the dawn he had motored across country to Exeter, driving like a madman, heedless of speed limits.

There he had dispatched a telegram to Penelope, and having waited unavailingly for a reply he had come straight on to town by rail.

The mark of those long hours of sickening apprehension was heavily imprinted on the white, set face he turned to Nan when she informed him that it was she who had stopped Penelope from sending any answer.
"And I suppose," he said slowly, "it merely struck you as.