He spoke at once in his calm, unmoved voice:
"A very old friend of mine lives here. She will put you up for the night and see to your comfort. Will you get out?"
Mutely she did so, feeling curiously weak and unstrung. He put his arm around her, and led her into the dim cottage garden.
They went up a tiled path to an open door from which the light of a single candle gleamed fitfully in the draught. She stumbled at the doorstep, but he held her up. He was almost carrying her.
As they entered, an old woman, bent and indescribably wrinkled, rose from her knees before a deep old-fashioned fireplace on the other side of the little kitchen, and came to meet them. She had evidently just coaxed a dying fire back to life.
"Ah, poor dear," she said at sight of the girl's exhausted face. "She looks more dead than alive. Bring her to the fire, Master Vivian. I'll soon have some hot milk for the poor lamb."
Caryl led her to an arm-chair that stood on one side of the blaze, and made her sit down. Then, stooping, he took one of her nerveless hands and held it closely in his own.
He did not speak to her, and she was relieved by his forbearance. As the warmth of his grasp gradually communicated itself to her numbed fingers, she felt her racing pulses grow steadier; but she was glad when he laid her hand down quietly in her lap and turned away.
He bent over her again in a few minutes with a cup of steaming milk. She took it from him, tasted it, and shuddered.
"There is brandy in it."