Tristan watched her gravely. "It will be now," he said after a moment of silence. "We'll find a solution."

She said a very soft, "No... I will. It's my fault." Then she slowly stood up, wavered a little, and walked toward the window. She stared out at the view below and bit her lip.

His eyes followed her carefully in case she should fall. When she wavered, he jerked up, but sat back when he saw she held her balance. Then at last, he got up after all, walked over to the window, and very lightly touched her shoulder. "You're not alone." How could he withhold compassion from someone who looked so miserable?

She turned her gaze to him and said, "I want my mother..." In a way, she was still a child, yearning for her parents. But she also had to grow up, and fast... The child in her warred with the adult. "I want my father too... And my brother... And Bess and Alfred and Johnny..." Her voice was wooden, hollow. "If I let you close, if I let Lord Gordon close, if I let Viktre close... If I dare to care about anyone, they all disappear into a cloud of smoke." Her voice was ragged, her eyes unseeing, her breathing shallow. "I'm so frightened, Dr. Wells."

And now his anger was forgotten. She had made foolish choices. But she was also alone in the world and that burden seemed to almost crush her. He took both her shoulders now and tried to make her look at him. "Pippa? I can't speak for Viktre." He had some suspicious about the type of guy he was, but Tristan deemed it better not to share those in that moment. "But I won't disappear. And Lord Gordon is an honourable man. He'll be here too. You are not alone."

She stared for a long moment without speaking, her eyes unseeing. Just a blank stare. And then it started with a tiny little hiccup, and then she pressed her fist to her mouth but sobs soon wrenched her frame as a torrent of tears began to flow. It was the kind of crying that happened after one had bottled something up for quite a bit of time. She covered her face then and turned away. She didn't want anyone to see her like that, but it was too late.

Tristan wished that he could do more to help her. But even an alienist could not ease the pain of loss and loneliness. "Come... sit down," he said gently, trying to lead her to the sofa.

She moved to sit down, heavily so. Her eyes were almost vacant at the moment. Her heart was shattered like a mirror, fragments reflecting thousands of memories and overwhelming her. The tears that started to fall only dribbled slowly to make wet tracks of saline upon her cheeks, moisture catching upon lashes when another would come. She was exhausted. "I will talk to him..." she said with a ragged voice. She wasn't going to say it out loud that she might end the affair even as it was too late for her. God, how could she have been so..? She couldn't even think of the proper word to describe her feelings at the moment.

He sat back down opposite of her, leaning forward. "That's a concern for later," he said gently. Any unmarried woman who found out she was pregnant would probably be in a state of shock and be scared, but Pippa's state worried him. He wished he could do something to comfort her, and yet he couldn't do anything to counter the fact that she was alone in the world, other than keeping a roof above her head, and he couldn't do anything about the fact that she was pregnant and unwed. Life could be hard, and Tristan often thought it was twice as hard on women. "Would you like me to give you something to calm your nerves?"

She gave a nod. "I'm tired, Dr. Wells," she said as she mopped at her face. Indeed, it had been such a trying day. Her eyes found his face and she finally seemed to meet his gaze, blinking several times and then giving a shuddering sigh. The poor thing looked so weary, so very tired.