Ah, listening to authority is always right, even when it clearly harms people. Nice. No, Mel's master is avoiding the entire thing; the 'right' thing if she really is uninterested and wants to protect Mel is to talk to her and give her the choice to get a new master, (well, the right thing is to talk and fuck the law because holy shit this is getting uncomfortably slave-like). What master was doing is just selfish, "well, I'll create some distance and ignore your feelings, but I still want you here" basically. And Stella doubting master is fine, they were best friends... as children... people change, and when you have a clearly distressed little girl and another one asking you not to send her back, hey maybe you need to figure some shit out. Putting people on a pedestal because you know them is terrible, and is why some many actual abusers get away with that shit. Sure, we know master isn't guilty of anything truly awful, but Stella is being pretty reasonable here I think, so kudos to her.