They rode back very slowly, the rain beating down on their heads and running in rivulets from Alyna’s white shoulders, down the little valley between her breasts.

Lord Dorrington knew that she was not aware of what was happening, but was gripped in a darkness so impenetrable that it blinded her to everything else.

As last they reached The Manor. He rode up to the front door and saw that his sister was standing at the top of the steps and his groom was waiting for them.

“Rupert told me you were here,” Elizabeth said, “and that someone was frightening Alyna. Whatever has happened?”

“She is all right,” Lord Dorrington said quietly. “Take her upstairs and give her a hot bath, she is soaked to the skin.”

“I can see she is!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Who has upset her?”

“Get her upstairs,” Lord Dorrington insisted.

As he spoke, he was helping Alyna up the steps. Then he realised that she was almost incapable of walking.

He picked her up in his arms and carried her up the stairs.

When he reached the top of the landing, he hesitated a moment as if wondering what room she was in. But the old butler was only a few steps behind him and opened a door into a bedroom.

Lord Dorrington carried Alyna across the room to an armchair by the fireplace. He set her down very gently and, looking at her pale face, said to the butler,

“Brandy! Bring me a decanter of brandy immediately.”

“Very good, my Lord”

The old man shuffled away as Elizabeth, who had taken the stairs more slowly, reached them.

“Can she have a hot bath?” Lord Dorrington asked.

“But of course,” Elizabeth said. “And by the looks of it you need one too. I will tell the servants.”

She went from the room. Lord Dorrington bent down and, taking one of Alyna’s hands in his, rubbed it gently.

“It’s all right,” he said softly, “the ogre has vanished. Rupert came back to the house to fetch his sword!”

He meant to arouse her interest and saw a faint gleam in her eyes, a little movement of her lips.

“Has – the Prince – really gone?” she asked at length in a fearful little voice that was hardly above a whisper.

“I promise you that he has left and he will not return for another whipping,” Lord Dorrington replied. His voice was hard.

“He – kissed – me,” Alyna murmured. “It was – horrible! Disgusting!”

“Forget it!” Lord Dorrington said sharply.

“I cannot – I shall – never feel – clean again.”

Lord Dorrington did not speak and after a moment she said still in a lost frightened voice,

“If – you had not – come, he – ”

“But I did come,” Lord Dorrington interposed. “Knights Errant always turn up at the eleventh hour!”

She looked up at him and now the darkness in her eyes seemed to have receded a little.

“That is – what you – are,” she murmured, “a Knight – Errant.”