'Sit down, Jack, she's coming with us. You don't mind if we don't go to Ventnor?'
Jack's eyes opened in astonishment but he made no reply. Victoria pulled Betty sharply down the steps.
'Oh, let me get my things,' she said weakly.
'No. They'd stop you. There, get in. Drive back to Elm Tree Place, cabman.'
Half an hour later, lying at full length on the boudoir sofa, Betty was slowly sipping some hot cocoa. There was a smile on her tear-stained face. Victoria was analysing with horror the ravages that sorrow had wrought on her. She was pretty still, with her china blue eyes and her hair like pale filigree gold; but the bones seemed to start from her red wrists, so thin had she become. Even the smile of exhausted content on her lips did not redeem her emaciated cheeks.
'Betty, my poor Betty,' said Victoria, taking her hand. 'What have they done to you?'
The girl looked up at the ceiling as if in a dream.
'Tell me all about it,' her friend went on, 'what has happened to you since April?'
'Oh, lots of things, lots of things. I've had a hard time.'
'Yes, I see. But what happened actually? Why did you leave the P.R.R.?'