“Grace! Oh, my darling girl! I got the wire too late to meet you, so rushed on here!”
Grace clutched her, searched her face with anguished eyes.
“Winnie, tell me the truth. You don’t believe my Roger did—it?”
“Believe it? I should think not, indeed! Who could believe it who knows him?” said Winnie staunchly.
“God bless you for that, Winnie,” cried Grace brokenly. “Oh, my dear, take me out of this—anywhere, anywhere!”
CHAPTER XIII AUSTIN’S THEORY
“If I hadn’t turned up just at that very moment, I believe Grace would have died on the doorstep. I hope there’s not another woman in the world would have behaved so abominably as Mrs. Armitage; but it is just like her. I never could imagine how she came to have such a daughter as Grace! But of course she takes after her father—the professor’s a dear. But what a life the pair of them have had with that horrid little creature!”
Winnie Winston spoke in an emphatic undertone, for the walls of the Chelsea flat were thin, and in the adjoining room Grace was in bed, worn out and fast asleep.