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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Westcotes, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Westcotes
+
+Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+Release Date: December 30, 2003  [eBook #10548]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTCOTES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Guus van Baalen
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  1. Words which may seem to be transcriber's typos, or otherwise
+     suspect, but which are reproduced faithfully (archaic spellings,
+     printer's typos--sometimes I couldn't tell):
+
+     Ch. I:    befel, undigged
+     Ch. III:  chaperon
+     Ch. IV:   babby, mun, valtz
+     Ch. V:    zounded, dimpsey, after'n, ax'n, ax
+     Ch. VI:   picquet, damitol
+     Ch. XI:   alwaies, Desarts, Eternitie
+
+  2. Diphthongs, given as single characters in the printed copy, are
+     transcribed as two separate characters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WESTCOTES
+
+by
+
+ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,
+
+A spinster, having borrowed a man's hat to decorate her front hall,
+excused herself on the ground that the house 'wanted a something.'
+By inscribing your name above this little story I please myself at
+the risk of helping the reader to discover not only that it wants a
+something, but precisely what that something is. It wants--to confess
+and have done with it--all the penetrating subtleties of insight, all
+the delicacies of interpretation, you would have brought to Dorothea's
+aid, if for a moment I may suppose her worth your championing. So I
+invoke your name to stand before my endeavour like a figure outside
+the brackets in an algebraical sum, to make all the difference by
+multiplying the meaning contained.
+
+But your consent gives me another opportunity even more warmly desired.
+And I think that you, too, will take less pleasure in discovering how
+excellent your genius appears to one who nevertheless finds it a
+mystery in operation, than in learning that he has not missed to
+admire, at least, and with a sense almost of personal loyalty, the
+sustained and sustaining pride in good workmanship by which you have
+set a common example to all who practise, however diversely, the art
+in which we acknowledge you a master.
+
+A. T. QUILLER-COUCH
+
+October 25th, 1901
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I     THE WESTCOTES OF BAYFIELD
+
+CHAPTER II    THE ORANGE ROOM
+
+CHAPTER III   A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL
+
+CHAPTER IV    ENCOUNTER BETWEEN A HIGH HORSE AND A HOBBY
+
+CHAPTER V     BEGINS WITH ANCIENT HISTORY AND ENDS WITH AN OLD STORY
+
+CHAPTER VI    FATE IN A LAURELLED POST-CHAISE
+
+CHAPTER VII   LOVE AND AN OLD MAID
+
+CHAPTER VIII  CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES
+
+CHAPTER IX    DOROTHEA CONFESSES
+
+CHAPTER X     DARTMOOR
+
+CHAPTER XI    THE NEW DOROTHEA
+
+CHAPTER XII   GENERAL ROCHAMBEAU TELLS A STORY; AND THE TING-TANG RINGS
+              FOR THE LAST TIME
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WESTCOTES OF BAYFIELD
+
+
+A mural tablet in Axcester Parish Church describes Endymion Westcote as
+"a conspicuous example of that noblest work of God, the English Country
+Gentleman." Certainly he was a typical one.
+
+In almost every district of England you will find a family which,
+without distinguishing itself in any particular way, has held fast to
+the comforts of life and the respect of its neighbours for generation
+after generation. Its men have never shone in court, camp, or senate;
+they prefer tenacity to enterprise, look askance upon wit (as a
+dangerous gift), and are even a little suspicious of eminence. On the
+other hand they make excellent magistrates, maintain a code of manners
+most salutary for the poor in whose midst they live and are looked up
+to; are as a rule satisfied, like the old Athenian, if they leave to
+their heirs not less but a little more than they themselves inherited,
+and deserve, as they claim, to be called the backbone of Great Britain.
+Many of the women have beauty, still more have an elegance which may
+pass for it, and almost all are pure in thought, truthful, assiduous in
+deeds of charity, and marry for love of those manly qualities which
+they have already esteemed in their brothers.
+
+Such a family were the Westcotes of Bayfield, or Bagvil, in 1810. Their
+"founder" had settled in Axcester towards the middle of the seventeenth
+century, and prospered--mainly, it was said, by usury. A little before
+his death, which befel in 1668, he purchased Bayfield House from a
+decayed Royalist who had lost his only son in the Civil Wars; and to
+Bayfield and the ancestral business (exalted now into Banking) his
+descendants continued faithful. One or both of the two brothers who,
+with their half-sister, represented the family in 1810, rode in on
+every week-day to their Bank-office in Axcester High Street,--a
+Georgian house of brick, adorned with a porch of plaster fluted to the
+shape of a sea-shell, out of which a. Cupid smiled down upon a brass
+plate and the inscription "WESTCOTE AND WESTCOTE," and on the first
+floor, with windows as tall as the rooms, so that from the street you
+could see through one the shapely legs of Mr. Endymion Westcote at his
+knee-hole table, and through another the legs of Mr. Narcissus. The
+third and midmost window was a dummy, having been bricked up to avoid
+the window-tax imposed by Mr. Pitt--in whose statesmanship, however,
+the brothers had firmly believed. Their somewhat fantastic names were
+traditional in the Westcote pedigree and dated from, the seventeenth
+century.
+
+Endymion, the elder, (who took the lead of Narcissus in all, things),
+was the fine flower of the Westcote stocks, and, out of question, the
+most influential man in Axcester and for many a mile round justice of
+the Peace for the county of Somerset and Major of its Yeomanry, he
+served "our town," (so he called it) as Overseer of the Poor, Governor
+of the Grammar School, Chairman of Feoffees, Churchwarden, everything
+in short but Mayor--an office which he left to the tradesmen, while
+taking care to speak of it always with respect, and indeed to see it
+properly filled. The part of County Magistrate--to which he had been
+born--he played to perfection, and with a full sense of its dignified
+amenity. (It was whispered that the Lord Lieutenant himself stood in
+some awe of him.) His favourite character, however, was that of plain
+citizen of his native town. "I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in
+his public speeches, and in his own way he loved and served the little
+borough. For its good he held its Parliamentary representation in the
+hollow of his hand; and, as Overseer of the Poor, had dared public
+displeasure by revising the Voters' List and defying a mandamus of the
+Court of King's Bench rather than allow Axcester to fail in its duty
+of returning two members to support Mr. Percevall's Ministry. In 1800,
+when the price of wheat rose to 184s a quarter, a poor woman dropped
+dead in the market place of starvation. At once a mob collected,
+hoisted a quartern-loaf on a pole with the label--"We will have Bread
+or Blood," and started to pillage the shop's in High Street. It was
+Endymion Westcote who rode up single-handed, (they, were carrying the
+only constable on their shoulders) and faced and dispersed the rioters.
+It was he who headed the subscription list, prevailed on the purchase a
+wagon-load of potatoes and persuaded the people to plant them--for
+even the seed potatoes had been eaten, and the gardens lay undigged.
+It was he who met the immediate famine by importing large quantities of
+rice. Finally, it was he, through his influence with the county, who
+brought back prosperity by getting the French prisoners sent to Axcester.
+
+We shall talk of these French prisoners by and by. To conclude this
+portrait of Endymion Westcote. He was a handsome, fresh-complexioned
+man, over six feet in height, and past his forty-fifth year; a bachelor
+and a Protestant. In his youth he had been noted for gallantry, and
+preserved some traces of it in his address. His grandfather had
+married a French lady, and although this union had not sensibly diluted
+the Westcote blood, Endymion would refer to it to palliate a youthful
+taste for playing the fiddle. He spoke French fluently, with a British
+accent which, when appointed Commissary, he took pains to improve by
+conversation with the prisoners, and was fond of discussing heredity
+with the two most distinguished of them--the Vicomte de Tocqueville
+and General Rochambeau.
+
+Narcissus, the younger brother, had neither the height nor the good
+looks nor the masterful carriage of Endymion, and made no pretence to
+rival him as a man of affairs. He professed to be known as the student
+of the family, dabbled in archaeology, and managed two or three local
+societies and field clubs, which met ostensibly to listen to his
+papers, but really to picnic. An accident had decided this bent of his
+--the discovery, during some repairs, of a fine Roman pavement beneath
+the floor of Bayfield House, At the age of eighteen, during a Cambridge
+vacation, Narcissus had written and privately printed a description of
+this pavement, proving not only that its tessellae represented scenes
+in the mythological story of Bacchus, but that the name "Bayfield," in
+some old deeds and documents written "Bagvil" or "Baggevil," was
+neither more nor less than a corruption of _Bacchi Villa_. Axcester and
+its neighbourhood are rich in Roman remains--the town stands, indeed,
+on the old Fosse Way--and, tempted by early success, Narcissus rode
+his hobby further and further afield. Now, at the age of forty-two, he
+could claim to be an authority on the Roman occupation of Britain, and
+especially on the conquests of Vespasian.  The circle of--the
+Westcotes' acquaintance gathered in the fine hall of Bayfield--or, as
+Narcissus preferred to call it, the atrium--drank tea, admired the
+pavement, listened to the alleged exploits of Vespasian, and wondered
+when the brothers would marry. Time went on, repeating these
+assemblies; and the question became, Will they ever marry? Apparently
+they had no thought of it, no idea that it was expected of them; and
+since they had both passed forty, the question might be taken as
+answered. But that so personable a man as Endymion Westcote would let
+the family perish was monstrous to suppose. He kept his good looks and
+his fresh complexion; even now some maiden would easily be found to
+answer his Olympian nod; and a vein of recklessness sometimes cropped
+up through his habitual caution, and kept his friends alert for
+surprises. In the hunting-field, for instance,--and he rode to hounds
+twice a week,--he made a rule of avoiding fences; but the world quite
+rightly set this down to a proper care for his person rather than to
+timidity, since on one famous occasion, riding up to find the whole
+field hesitating before a "rasper" (they were hunting a strange country
+that day), he put his horse at it and sailed over with a nonchalance
+relieved only by his ringing laugh on the farther side. It was odds he
+would clear the fence of matrimony, some day, with the same casual
+heartiness; and, in any case, he was masterful enough to insist on
+Narcissus marrying, should it occur to him to wish it.
+
+Oddly enough, the gossips who still arranged marriages for the brothers
+had given over speculating upon their hostess, Miss Dorothea. She could
+not, of course, perpetuate the name; but this by no means accounted for
+all the difference in their concern. Dorothea Westcote was now thirty-
+seven, or five years younger than Narcissus, whose mother had died soon
+after his birth. The widower had created one of the few scandals in the
+Westcote history by espousing, some four years later, a young woman of
+quite inferior class, the daughter of a wholesale glover in Axcester.
+The new wife had good looks, but they did not procure her pardon; and
+she made the amplest and speediest amends by dying within twelve
+months, and leaving a daughter who in no way resembled her. The husband
+survived her just a dozen years.
+
+Dorothea, the daughter, was a plain girl; her brothers, though kind and
+fond of her after a fashion, did not teach her to forget it. She loved
+them, but her love partook of awe: they were so much cleverer, as well
+as handsomer, than she. Having no mother or friend of her own sex to
+imitate, she grow into an awkward woman, sensitive to charm in others
+and responding to it without jealousy, but ignorant of what it meant or
+how it could be acquired. She picked up some French from her brother
+Endymion, and masters were hired who taught her to dance, to paint in
+water colours, and to play with moderate skill upon the harp. But few
+partners had ever sought her in the ballroom; her only drawings which
+anyone ever asked to see were half-a-dozen of the Bayfield pavement,
+executed for Narcissus' monograph; and her harp she played in her own
+room. Now and then Endymion would enquire how she progressed with her
+music, would listen to her report and observe: "Ah, I used to do a
+little fiddling myself." But he never put her proficiency to the test.
+
+Somehow, and long before the world came to the same conclusion, she had
+resolved that marriage was not for her. She adored babies, though they
+usually screamed at the sight of her, and she thought it would be
+delightful to have one of her own who would not scream; but apart from
+this vague sentiment, she accepted her fate without sensible regret.
+By watching and copying the mistresses of the few houses she visited
+she learned to play the hostess at Bayfield, and, as time brought
+confidence, played it with credit. She knew that people laughed at her,
+and that yet they liked her; their liking and their laughter puzzled
+her about equally. For the rest, she was proud of Bayfield and content,
+though one day much resembled another, to live all her life there,
+devoted to God and her garden. Visitors always praised her garden.
+
+Axcester lies on the western side and mostly at the foot of a low hill
+set accurately in the centre of a ring of hills slightly higher-the
+raised bottom of a saucer would be no bad simile. The old Roman road
+cuts straight across this rise, descends between the shops of the High
+Street, passes the church, crosses the Axe by a narrow bridge, and
+climbing again passes the iron gates of Bayfield House, a mile above
+the river. So straight is it that Dorothea could keep her brothers in
+view from the gates until they dismounted before their office door,
+losing sight of them for a minute or two only among the elms by the
+bridge. Her boudoir window commanded the same prospect; and every day
+as the London coach topped the hill, her maid Polly would run with
+news of it. The two would be watching, often before the guard's horn
+awoke the street and fetched the ostlers out in a hurry from the "Dogs
+Inn" stables with their relay of four horses. Miss Dorothea possessed
+a telescope, too; and if the coach were dressed with laurels and flags
+announcing a victory, mistress and maid would run to the gates and wave
+their handkerchiefs as it passed.
+
+Sometimes, too, Polly would announce a post-chaise, and the telescope
+decide whether the postboys wore the blue or the buff. Nor were these
+their only causes of excitement; for the great Bayfield elm, a rood
+below the gates and in full view of them, marked the westward boundary
+of the French prisoners on parole. Some of these were quite regular in
+their walks for instance, Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin and General
+Rochambeau, who came at three o'clock or thereabouts on Wednesdays and
+Saturdays, summer and winter. At six paces on the far side of the elm--
+such was their punctilio--they halted, took snuff, linked arms again
+and turned back. (Dorothea had entertained them both at Bayfield, and
+met them at dinner in one or two neighbouring houses.) On the same
+days, and on Mondays as well, old Jean Pierre Pichou, ex-boatswain of
+the _Didon_ frigate, would come along arm-in-arm with Julien Carales,
+alias Frap d'Abord, ex-_marechal des logis_--Pichou, with his wooden
+leg, and Frap d'Abord twisting a grey moustache and uttering a steady
+torrent of imprecation--or so it sounded. These could be counted on;
+but scores of others stopped and turned at the Bayfield elm, and Polly
+had names for them all. Moreover, on one memorable day Dorothea had
+watched one who did not halt precisely at the elm. A few paces beyond
+it, and on the side of the road facing the grounds, straggled an old
+orchard, out of which her brother Endymion had been missing, of late,
+a quantity of his favourite pippins--by name (but it may have been a
+local one) Somerset Warriors. The month was October, the time about
+half-past four, the light dusky. Yet Miss Dorothea, lingering by the
+gate, saw a young man pass the Bayfield elm and climb the hedge; and
+saw and heard him nail against an apple-tree overhanging the road, a
+board with white letters on a black ground. When it was fixed, the
+artist descended to the road and gazed up admiringly at his work. In
+the act of departing he turned, and suddenly stood still again. His
+face was toward the Bayfield gate. Dorothea could not tell if he saw
+her, but he remained thus, motionless, for almost a minute. Then he
+seemed to recollect himself and marched off briskly down the road.
+Early next morning she descended and read the inscription, which ran:
+"Restaurant pour les Aspirants."
+
+She said nothing about it, and soon after breakfast the board was
+removed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE ORANGE ROOM
+
+
+Some weeks later, on a bright and frosty morning in December, Dorothea
+rode into Axcester with her brothers. She was a good horsewoman and
+showed to advantage on horseback, when her slight figure took a grace
+of movement which made amends for her face. To-day the brisk air and a
+canter across the bridge at the foot of the hill had brought roses to
+her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. General Rochambeau happened
+to pass down the street as the three drew rein before the Town House
+(so the Westcotes always called the Bank-office), and, pausing to help
+her dismount, paid her a very handsome compliment.
+
+Dorothea knew, of course, that Frenchmen were lavish of compliments,
+and had heard General Rochambeau pay them where she felt sure they were
+not deserved. Nevertheless she found this one pleasant--she had
+received so few--and laughed happily. It may have come from the
+freshness of the morning, but to-day her spirit sat light within her and
+expectant she could not say of what, yet it seemed that something good
+was going to happen.
+
+"I have a guess," said the old General, "that Miss Westcote and I are
+bound on the same errand. Her's cannot be to inspect dull bonds and
+ledgers, bills of exchange or rates of interest."
+
+He jerked his head towards the house, and Dorothea shook hers.
+
+"I am going to 'The Dogs,' General."
+
+"Eh?" He scented the jest and chuckled. "As you say, 'to the dogs'
+hein? Messieurs, I beg you to observe and take warning that your sister
+and I are going to the dogs together."
+
+He offered his arm to Dorothea. Her brothers had dismounted and handed
+their horses over to the ostler who waited by the porch daily to lead
+them to the inn stables.
+
+"I will stable Mercury myself," said she, addressing Endymion. She
+submitted her smallest plans to him for approval.
+
+"Do so," he answered. "After running through my letters, I will step
+down to the Orange Room and join you. I entrust her to you, General--
+the more confidently because you cannot take her far."
+
+He laughed and followed Narcissus through the porch. Dorothea saw the
+old General wince. She slipped an arm through Mercury's bridle-rein
+and picked up her skirt; the other arm she laid in her companion's.
+
+"You have not seen the Orange Room, Miss Dorothea?"
+
+"Not since the decorations began." She paused and uttered the thought
+uppermost in her mind. "You must forgive my brother; I am sorry he
+spoke as he did just now."
+
+"Then he is more than forgiven."
+
+"He did not consider."
+
+"Dear Mademoiselle, your brother is an excellent fellow, and not a bit
+more popular than he deserves to be. Of his kindness to us prisoners--
+I speak not of us privileged ones, but of our poorer brothers--I
+could name a thousand acts; and acts say more than words."
+
+Dorothea pursed her lips. "I am not sure. I think a woman would ask for
+words too."
+
+"Yes, that is so," he caught her up. "But don't you see that we
+prisoners are--forgive me--just like women? I mean, we have learned
+that we are weak. For a man that is no easy lesson, Mademoiselle. I
+myself learned it hardly. And seeing your brother admired by all, so
+strong and prosperous and confident, can I ask that he should feel as
+we who have forfeited these things?"
+
+Before she could find a reply he had harked back to the Orange Room.
+
+"You have not seen it since the decorations began? Then I have a mind
+to run and ask your brother to forbid your coming--to command you to
+wait until Wednesday. We are in a horrible mess, I warn you, and smell
+of turpentine most potently. But we shall be ready for the ball, and
+then--! It will be prodigious. You do not know that we have a genius
+at work on the painting?"
+
+"My brother tells me the designs are extraordinarily clever."
+
+"They are more than clever, you will allow. The artist I discovered
+myself--a young man named Charles Raoul. He comes from the South, a
+little below Avignon, and of good family--in some respects." The
+General paused and took snuff. "He enlisted at eighteen and has seen
+service; he tells me he was wounded at Austerlitz. Unhappily he was
+shipped, about two years ago, on board the _Thétis_ frigate, with a
+detachment and stores for Martinique. The _Thétis_ had scarcely left
+L'Orient before she fell in with one of your frigates, whose name
+escapes me; and here he is in Axcester. He has rich relatives, but for
+some reason or other they decline to support him; and yet he seems a
+gentleman. He picks up a few shillings by painting portraits; but you
+English are shy of sitting--I wonder why? And we--well, I suppose we
+prefer to wait till our faces grow happier."
+
+Dorothea had it on the tip of her tongue to ask how the General had
+discovered this genius; but the ring in his voice gave her pause.
+Twice in the course of their short walk he had shown feeling; and she
+wondered at it, having hitherto regarded him as a cynical old fellow
+with a wit which cracked himself and the world like two dry nuts for
+the jest of their shrivelled kernels. She did not, know that a kind
+word of hers had unlocked his heart; and before she could recall her
+question they had reached the stable-yard of  "The Dogs." And after
+stabling Mercury it was but a step across to the inn.
+
+The "Dogs Inn" took its name from two stone greyhounds beside its porch--
+supporters of the arms of that old family from which the Westcotes had
+purchased Bayfield; and the Orange Room from a tradition that William
+of Orange had spent a night there on his march from Torbay. There may
+have been truth in the tradition; the room at any rate preserved in it
+window-hangings of orange-yellow, and a deep fringe of the same hue
+festooning the musicians' gallery. While serving Axcester for ball,
+rout, and general assembly-room, it had been admittedly dismal--its
+slate-coloured walls scarred and patched with new plaster, and relieved
+only by a gigantic painting of the Royal Arms on panel in a blackened
+frame; its ceiling garnished with four pendants in plaster, like bride-
+cake ornaments inverted.
+
+To-day, as she stepped across the threshold, Dorothea hesitated between
+stopping her ears and rubbing her eyes. The place was a Babel.
+Frenchmen in white paper caps and stained linen blouses were laughing,
+plying their brushes, mixing paints, shifting ladders, and jabbering
+all the while at the pitch of their voices. For a moment the din
+bewildered her; the ferment had no more meaning, no more method, than
+a schoolboy's game. But her eyes, passing over the chaos of paint-pots,
+brushes, and step-ladders, told her the place had been transformed.
+The ceiling between the four pendants had become a blue heaven with
+filmy clouds, and Cupids scattering roses before a train of doves and
+a recumbent goddess, whom a little Italian, perched on a scaffolding
+and whistling shrilly, was varnishing for dear life. Around the walls--
+sky-blue also--trellises of vines and pink roses clambered around the
+old panels. The energy of the workmen had passed into their paintings,
+or perhaps Dorothea's head swam; at any rate, the cupids and doves
+seemed to be whirling across the ceiling, the vines, and roses mounting
+towards it, and pushing out shoots and tendrils while they climbed.
+
+But the panels themselves! They were nine in all: three down the long
+black wall, two narrower ones at the far end, four between the orange-
+curtained windows looking on the street. (The fourth wall had no panel,
+being covered, by the musicians' gallery and the pillars supporting
+it.) In each, framed by the vines and roses, glowed a scene of
+classical or pseudo-classical splendour; golden sunsets, pale yellow
+skies, landscapes cleverly imitated from recollections of Claude
+Lorraine, dotted with temples and small figures in flowing drapery,
+with here and there a glimpse of naked limbs. Here were Bacchus and
+Ariadne, with a company of dancing revellers; Apollo and Marsyas; the
+Rape of Helen; Dido welcoming Aeneas. . . . Dorothea (albeit she had
+often glanced into the copy of M. Lempriere's Classical Dictionary in
+her brother's library, and, besides, had picked up something of Greek
+and Roman mythology in helping Narcissus) did not at once discriminate
+the subjects of these panels, but her eyes rested on them with a
+pleasant sense of recognition, and were still resting on them when she
+heard General Rochambeau say:
+
+"Ah, there is my genius! You must let me present him, Mademoiselle.
+He will amuse you. Hi, there! Raoul!"
+
+A young man, standing amid a group of workmen and criticising one of
+the panels between the curtains, turned sharply. Almost before Dorothea
+was aware, he had doffed his paper cap and the General was introducing
+him.
+
+She recognised him at once. He was the young prisoner who had nailed
+the board against her brother's apple-tree.
+
+He bowed and began at once to apologise for the state of the room. He
+had expected no visitors before Wednesday. The General had played a
+surprise upon him. And Miss Westcote, alas! was a critic, especially
+of classical subjects.
+
+He had heard of her drawings for her brother's book.
+
+Dorothea blushed.
+
+"Indeed I am no artist. Please do not talk of those drawings. If you
+only knew how much I am ashamed of them. And besides, they were meant
+as diagrams to help the reader, not as illustrations. But these are
+beautiful."
+
+He turned with a pleasant laugh. She had already taken note of his
+voice, but his laugh was even more musical.
+
+"Daphne pursued by Apollo," he commenced, waving his hand towards the
+panel in face of her. "Be pleased to observe the lady sinking into the
+bush; an effect which the ingenious painter has stolen from no less a
+masterpiece than the Buisson Ardent' of Nicholas Froment."
+
+The General fumbled for the ribbon of his gold eye-glass. M. Raoul
+moved towards the next panel, and Dorothea followed him.
+
+"Perseus entering the Garden of the Hesperides."
+
+The painting, though slapdash, was astonishingly clever; and in this,
+as in other panels, no trace of the artist's hurry appeared in the
+reposeful design. Coiled about the foot of the tree, the dragon Ladon
+blinked an eye lazily at three maidens pacing hand in hand in the
+dance, over-hung with dark boughs and golden fruit. Behind them
+Perseus, with naked sword, halted in admiration, half issuing from a
+thicket over which stretched a distant bright line of sea and white
+cliff.
+
+"You like it?" he asked. "But it is not quite finished yet, and
+Mademoiselle, if she is frank, will say that it wants something."
+
+His voice held a challenge.
+
+"I am sure, sir, I could not guess, even if I possessed--"
+
+"A board, for example?"
+
+"A board?"
+
+She was completely puzzled.
+
+He glanced at her sideways, turned to the panel, and with his
+forefingers traced the outline of a square upon it, against the tree.
+
+"Restaurant pour les Aspirants," he announced.
+
+He said it quietly, over his shoulder. The sudden challenge, her sudden
+discovery that he knew, made Dorothea gasp. She had not the smallest
+notion how to answer him, or even what kind of answer he expected, and
+stood dumb, gazing at his back. A workman, passing, apologised for
+having brushed her skirt with the step-ladder he carried. She stammered
+some words of pardon. And just then, to her relief, her brother
+Endymion's voice rang out from the doorway:
+
+"Ah, there you are. Well, I declare!" He looked around him. "A
+Paradise, a perfect Paradise! Indeed, General, your nation has its
+revenge of us in the arts. You build a temple for us, and on Wednesday
+I hear you are to provide the music. Tum-tum, ta-ta-ta . . ." He hummed
+a few bars of Gluck's "Paride ed Elenna," and paused, with the gesture
+of one holding a fiddle, on the verge of a reminiscence. "There was a
+time--but I no longer compete. And to whom, General, are we indebted
+for this--ah--treat?"
+
+General Rochambeau indicated young Raoul, who stepped forward from the
+wall and answered, with a respectful inclination:
+
+"Well, M. le Commissaire, in the first place to Captain Seymour."
+
+The General bit his moustache; Endymion frowned. The answer merely
+puzzled Dorothea, who did not know that Seymour was the name of the
+British officer to whom the _Thétis_ had struck her colours.
+
+"Moreover," the young man went on imperturbably, "we but repay our
+debt to M. le Commissaire--for the entertainment he affords us."
+
+Dorothea looked up sharply now, even anxiously; but her brother took
+the shot, if shot it were, for a compliment. He put the awkward idiom
+aside with a gracious wave of the hand. His brow cleared.
+
+"But we must do something for these poor fellows," he announced,--
+sweeping all the work-men in a gaze; "in mere gratitude we must. A
+stall, now, at the end of the room under the gallery, with one or two
+salesmen whom you must recommend to me, General. We might dispose of
+quite a number of their small carvings and _articles de Paris_, with
+which the market among the townspeople is decidedly overstocked. The
+company on Wednesday will be less familiar with them: they will serve
+as mementoes, and the prices, I daresay, will not be too closely
+considered."
+
+"Sir, I beg of you--" General Rochambeau expostulated.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"They have given their labour--such as it is--in pure gratitude for
+the kindness shown to them by all in Axcester. That has been the whole
+meaning of our small enterprise," the old gentleman persisted.
+
+"Still, I don't suppose they'll object if it brings a little beef to
+their _ragoûts_. Say no more, say no more. What have we here? Eh?
+'Bacchus and Ariadne'? I am rusty in my classics, but Bacchus,
+Dorothea! This will please Narcissus. We have in our house, sir,"--
+here he addressed Raoul,--"a Roman pavement entirely--ah--concerned
+with that personage. It is, I believe, unique. One of these days I must
+give you a permit to visit Bayfield and inspect it, with my brother for
+_cicerone_. It will repay you--"
+
+"It will more than repay me," the young man interposed, with his gaze
+demurely bent on the wall.
+
+"I should have said, it will repay your inspection. You must jog my
+memory."
+
+It was clear Raoul had a reply on his tongue. But he glanced at
+Dorothea, read her expression, and, turning to her brother, bowed
+again. Her first feeling was of gratitude. A moment later she blamed
+herself for having asked his forbearance by a look, and him for his
+confidence in seeking that look. His eyes, during the moment they
+encountered hers, had said, "We under-stand one another." He had no
+right to assume so much, and yet she had not denied it.
+
+Endymion Westcote meanwhile had picked up a small book which lay face
+downward on one of the step-ladders.
+
+"So here is the source of your inspiration? said he. An _Ovid_? How it
+brings up old school-days At Winchester--old swishings, too, General,
+hey?" He held the book open and studied the Ariadne on the wall.
+
+"The source of my inspiration indeed, M. le Commissaire! But you will
+not find Ariadne in that text, which contains only the _Tristia_."
+
+"Ah, but, I told you my classics were a bit rusty," replied the
+Commissary. He made the round of the walls and commended, in his breezy
+way, each separate panel. "You must take my criticisms for what they
+are worth, M. Raoul. But my grandmother was a Frenchwoman, and that
+gives me a kind of--sympathy, shall we say? Moreover, I know what I
+like."
+
+Dorothea, accustomed to regard her brother as a demigod, caught herself
+blushing for him. She was angry with herself. She caught M. Raoul's
+murmur, "Heaven distributes to us our talents, Monsieur," and was angry
+with him, understanding and deprecating the raillery beneath his
+perfectly correct attitude. He kept this attitude to the end. When the
+time came for parting, he bent over her hand and whispered again:
+
+"But it was kind of Mademoiselle not to report me."
+
+She heard. It set up a secret understanding between them, which she
+resented. There was nothing to say, again; yet she had found no way
+of rebuking him, she was angry with herself all the way home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL
+
+
+Axcester's December Ball was a social event of importance in South
+Somerset. At once formal and familiar--familiar, since nine-tenths of
+the company dwelt close enough together to be on visiting terms--it
+nicely preluded the domestic festivities of Christmas, and the more
+public ones which began with the New Year and culminated in the great
+County Balls at Taunton and Bath. Nor were the families around Axcester
+jaded with dancing, as those in the neighbourhood of Bath, for example;
+but discussed dresses and the prospects of the Ball for some weeks
+beforehand, and, when the day came, ordered out the chariot or barouche
+in defiance of any ordinary weather.
+
+The weather since Dorothea's visit to the Orange Room had included a
+frost, a fall of snow with a partial thaw, and a second and much
+severer frost; and by Wednesday afternoon the hill below Bayfield wore
+a hard and slippery glaze. Endymion, however, had seen to the roughing
+of the horses. Thin powdery snow began to fall as the Bayfield barouche
+rolled past the gates into the high road; and Narcissus, who considered
+himself a weather-prophet, foretold a thaw before morning. Unless the
+weather grew worse, the party would drive back to Bayfield; but the old
+caretaker in the Town House had orders to light fires there and prepare
+the bedrooms, and on the chance of being detained. Dorothea had brought
+her maid Polly.
+
+In spite of her previous visit, the Orange Room gave her a shock of
+delight and wonder. The litter had vanished, the hangings were in
+place; fresh orange-coloured curtains divided the dancing-floor from
+the recess beneath the gallery, and this had been furnished as a
+withdrawing-room, with rugs, settees, groups of green foliage plants,
+and candles, the light of which shone through shades of yellow paper.
+The prisoners, too, had adorned with varicoloured paperwork the
+candelabra, girandoles and mirrors which drew twinkles from the long
+waxed floor, and softened whatever might have been garish in the
+decorations. Certainly the panels took a new beauty, a luminous
+delicacy, in their artificial rays; and Dorothea, when, after much
+greeting and hand-shaking, she joined one of the groups inspecting
+them, felt a sort of proprietary pleasure in the praises she heard.
+
+Had she known it, she too was looking her best tonight--in an old-
+maidish fashion, be it understood. She wore a gown of ashen-grey
+muslin, edged with swansdown, and tied with sash and shoulder-knots
+of a flame-hued ribbon which had taken her fancy at Bath in the autumn.
+Her sandal-shoes, stockings, gloves, cap--she had worn caps for six
+or seven years now,--even her fan, were of the same ash-coloured grey.
+
+Dorothea knew how to dress. She also knew how to dance. The music made
+her heart beat faster, and she never entered a ball-room without a
+sense of happy expectancy. Poor lady! she never left but she carried
+home heart-sickness, weariness, and a discontent of which she purged
+her soul, on her knees, before lying down to sleep. She had a contrite
+spirit; she knew that her lot was a fortunate one; but she envied her
+maid Polly her good looks at times. With Polly's face, she might have
+dancing to her heart's content. Usually she dropped some tears on her
+pillow after a night's gaiety.
+
+At Bath, at Taunton, at Axcester, it had always been the same, and with
+time she had learnt to set her hopes low and steel her heart early to
+their inevitable disappointment. So tonight she took her seat against
+the wall and watched while the first three _contre-danses_ went by
+without bringing her a partner. For the fourth--the "Soldier's joy"--
+she was claimed by an awkward schoolboy, home for the holidays; whether
+out of duty or obeying the law of Nature by which shy youths are
+attracted to middle-aged partners, she could not tell, nor did she ask
+herself, but danced the dance and enjoyed it more than her cavalier
+was ever likely to guess. Such a chance had, before now, been looked
+back upon as the one bright spot in a long evening's experience.
+Dorothea loved all schoolboys for the kindness shown to her by these
+few.
+
+She went back to her seat, hard by a group to which Endymion was
+discoursing at large. Endymion's was a mellow voice, of rich compass,
+and he had a knack of compelling the attention of all persons within
+range. He preferred this to addressing anyone in particular, and his
+eye sought and found, and gathered by instinct, the last loiterer
+without the charmed circle.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "it is tasteful, and something more. It
+illustrates, as you well say, the better side of our excitable
+neighbours across the Channel. Setting patriotism apart and regarding
+the question merely in its--ah--philosophical aspect, it has often
+occurred to me to wonder how a nation so expert in the arts of life,
+so--how shall I put it?--"
+
+"Natty," suggested one of his hearers; but he waved the word aside.
+
+"--of such lightness of touch, as I might describe it,--I say, it has
+often occurred to me to wonder how such a nation could so far mistake
+its destiny and the designs of Providence (inscrutable though they be)
+as to embark on a career of foreign conquest which can only--ah--
+have one end."
+
+"Come to grief," put in Lady Bateson, a dowager in a crimson cap with
+military feathers. She was supposed to cherish a hopeless passion for
+Endymion. Also, she was supposed to be acting as Dorothea's chaperon
+tonight; but having with little exertion found partners for a niece of
+her own, a sprightly young lady on a visit from Bath, felt that she
+deserved to relax her mind in a little intellectual talk. Endymion
+accepted her remark with magnificent tolerance.
+
+"Precisely." He inclined towards her. "You have hit it precisely."
+
+Dorothea stole a glance at her brother. Military and hunt uniforms were
+_de rigueur_ at these Axcester balls, and a Major of Yeomanry more
+splendid than Endymion Westcote it would have been hard to find in
+England. He stood with a hand negligently resting on his left hip--
+the word hip,--his right foot advanced, the toe of his polished boot
+tapping the floor. His smile, indulgent as it hovered over Lady
+Bateson, descended to this protruded leg and became complacent, as it
+had a right to be.
+
+"Well, I've always said so from the start," Lady Bateson announced,
+"and now I'm sure of it. I don't mind Frenchmen as Frenchmen; but what
+I say is, let them stick to their fal-de-rals."
+
+"That is the side of them which, in my somewhat responsible position,
+I endeavour to humour. You see the result." He swept his hand towards
+the painted panels. "One thing I must say, in justice to my charges,
+I find them docile."
+
+Dorothea had confidence in her brother's tact and his unerring eye for
+his audience. Yet she looked about her nervously, to make sure that of
+the few prisoners selected for invitation to the ball, none was within
+earshot. The Vicomte de Tocqueville, a stoical young patrician, had
+chosen a partner for the next dance, and was leading her out with that
+air of vacuity with which he revenged himself upon the passing hour of
+misfortune. "Go on," it seemed to say, "but permit me to remind you
+that, so far as I am concerned, you do not exist." Old General
+Rochambeau and old Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin, in worn but
+carefully-brushed regimentals, patrolled the far end of the room
+arm-in-arm. The Admiral seemed in an ill humour; and this was nothing
+new, he grumbled at everything. But the General's demeanour, as he
+trotted up and down beside his friend (doubtless doing his best to
+pacify him), betrayed an unwonted agitation. It occurred to Dorothea
+that he had not yet greeted her and paid his usual compliment.
+
+"Miss Westcote is not dancing tonight?"
+
+The voice was at her elbow, and she looked up with a start--to meet
+the gaze of M. Raoul.
+
+"Excuse me"--she wished to explain why she had been startled--"I did
+not expect--"
+
+"To see me here! It appears that they have given the scene-painter a
+free ticket, and I assume that it carries permission to dance, provided
+he does not display in an unseemly manner the patch in the rear of his
+best tunic."
+
+He turned his head in a serio-comic effort to stare down his back.
+Dorothea admitted to herself that he made a decidedly handsome fellow
+in his blue uniform with red facings and corded epaulettes; nor does a
+uniform look any the worse for having seen a moderate amount of service.
+
+"But Mademoiselle was in a--what do you call it?--a brown study, which
+I interrupted."
+
+"I was wondering why General Rochambeau had, not yet come to speak with
+me."
+
+"I can account for it, perhaps; but first you must answer my question,
+Mademoiselle. Are you not dancing tonight?"
+
+"That will depend, sir, on whether I am asked or no."
+
+She said it almost archly, on the moment's impulse; and, the words out,
+felt that they were over-bold. But she did not regret them when her
+eyes met his. He was offering his arm, and she found herself joining in
+his laugh--a happy, confidential little laugh. Dorothea cast a nervous
+glance towards her brother, but Endymion's back was turned. She saw
+that her partner noted the look, and half-defiantly she nodded towards
+the gallery as the French musicians struck into a jolly jigging quick-
+step with a crash at every third bar.
+
+"_Mais cela me rend folle_," she murmured.
+
+"Do you know the air? It's the 'Bridge of Lodi,' and we are to dance
+'Britannia's Triumph' to it. Come, Mademoiselle, since the 'Triumph'
+is nicely mixed, let your captive lead you."
+
+Those were days of reels, poussettes, ladies' chains, and figure
+dancing; honest heel-and-toe, hopping and twisting, hands across and
+down the middle--an art contemned now, worse than neglected, insulted
+by the vulgar caricature of "kitchen lancers"; but then seriously
+practised, delighting the eye, bringing blood to the dancers' cheeks.
+For five minutes and more Dorothea was entirely happy. M. Raoul--
+himself no mean performer--tasted, after his first surprise, something
+of the joy of discovery. Who could have guessed that this quiet
+spinster, who, as a rule, held herself and walked so awkwardly, would
+prove the best partner in the room? He had not the least doubt of it.
+Others danced with more abandonment, with more exuberant vigour--
+"romped" was his criticism--but none with such _élan_ perfectly
+restrained, covering precision with grace. Hands across, cast off and
+wheel; as their fingers met again he felt the tense nerves, the throb
+of the pulse beneath the glove. Her lips were parted, her eyes and
+whole face animated. She was not thinking of him, or of anyone; only
+of the swing and beat of the music, the sway of life and colour, her
+own body swaying to it, enslaved to the moment and answering no other
+call.
+
+"I understand why they call it the Triumph," he murmured, as he led
+her back to her seat. She turned her eyes on him as one coming out of
+a dream.
+
+"I have never enjoyed a dance so much in my life," she said seriously.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"It must have been an inspiration--" he began, and checked himself,
+with a glance over his shoulder at the painted panel behind them.
+
+"You were saying--" She looked up after a moment.
+
+"Nothing. Listen to the Ting-tang!"
+
+He drew aside one of the orange curtains, and Dorothea heard the note
+of a bell clanging in a distant street. "Time for all good prisoners
+to be in bed, and Heaven temper the wind to the thin blanket! It is
+snowing--snowing furiously."
+
+"Do they suffer much in these winters?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"They die sometimes, though your brother does his best to prevent it.
+It promises to be a hard season for them."
+
+"I wish I could help; but Endymion--my brother does not approve of
+ladies mixing themselves up in these affairs."
+
+"Yet he has carried off half-a-dozen to the supper-room, where at a
+side table three of my compatriots are vending knick-knacks, to add
+a little beef to their _ragoûts_."
+
+"Is it that which has annoyed General Rochambeau?"
+
+She had recognised the phrase, but let it pass.
+
+"It is."
+
+She understood. For some reason her brain was unusually clear tonight.
+At any other time she would have defended, or at least excused, her
+brother. She knew it, and found time to wonder at her new practicality
+as she answered:
+
+"I must think of some way to help."
+
+She saw his brow clear--saw that had risen in his esteem--and was
+glad.
+
+"To you, Mademoiselle, we shall find it easy to be grateful."
+
+"By helping them," she explained, "I may also be helping my brother.
+You do not understand him as I do, and you sharpen your wit upon him,"
+
+"Be assured it does not hurt him, Mademoiselle."
+
+"No, but it hurts _me_."
+
+He bowed gravely.
+
+"It shall not hurt you, again. Whom you love, you shall protect."
+
+"Ah! M. Raoul!" Endymion Westcote hailed him from the doorway and
+crossed the room with Narcissus in tow. "My brother is interested in
+your panel of Bacchus and Ariadne; he will be glad to discuss it with
+you. Br-r-r-!"--he shivered--"I have been down to the door, and it
+is snowing viciously. Some of our friends will hardly find their homes
+tonight. I hope, by the way, you have brought a great-coat?"
+
+Raoul ignored the question.
+
+"I fear, sir, your learning will discover half-a-dozen mistakes," said
+he, addressing Narcissus and leading the way towards the panel.
+
+"But whilst I think of it," Endymion persisted, "I saw half-a-dozen old
+baize chair-covers behind the cloak-room door. Don't hesitate to take
+one; you can return it to-morrow or next day." Dorothea being his only
+audience, he beamed a look on her which said: "They come to us in a
+hurry, these prisoners--no time to collect a wardrobe; but I think of
+these little things."
+
+"Rest assured, sir, I will turn up my coat-collar," said Raoul; and
+Dorothea could see him, a moment later, shaking his head good-
+naturedly, though the Commissary still protested.
+
+Dorothea, left to herself, watched them examining and discussing the
+panel of Bacchus and Ariadne. The orchestra started another _contre-
+danse_, but no partner approached to claim her. The dance began. It
+was the "Dashing White Sergeant," and one exuberant couple threatened
+to tread upon her toes. She stood up and, for lack of anything better
+to do, began to study the panel behind her.
+
+A moment later her hand went up to her throat.
+
+It was the panel on which M. Raoul had sketched an imaginary board
+with his thumb-nail--the Garden of the Hesperides. But the Perseus
+was different; he wore the face of M. Raoul himself. And beneath the
+throat of the nymph on the right, half concealed in the folds about
+her bosom, hung a locket--a small enamelled heart, edged with
+brilliants. Just such a trinket--a brooch--had pinned the collar of
+her close habit three days before, when she and M. Raoul had stood
+together discussing the panel. It was a legacy from her mother.
+
+Hastily she put out a hand and drew the edge of the orange curtain
+over nymph and locket.
+
+Soon after supper Endymion Westcote informed his sister that it was
+hopeless to think of returning to Bayfield. The barouche would convey
+her back to the Town House; but already the snow lay a foot and a half
+deep, and was still falling. He himself, after packing her off with
+Narcissus, would remain and attend to the comfort of the guests, many
+of whom must bivouac at "The Dogs" for the night as best they could.
+
+At midnight, or a little later, the barouche was announced. It drew up
+close to the porch, axle-deep in snow. Upstairs the orchestra was
+sawing out the strains of "Major Malley's Reel," as Endymion lifted
+his sister in and slammed the door upon her and Narcissus. The noise
+prevented his hearing a sash-window lifted, immediately above the porch.
+
+"Right away!"
+
+The inn-servant who had accompanied the Westcotes turned back to trim a
+candle flaring in the draughty passage. But it so happened that, in
+starting, the coachman entangled his off-rein in the trace-buckle.
+Endymion, in his polished hessians, ran round to unhitch it.
+
+On the window-sill above, two deft hands quickly scooped up and moulded
+a snowball.
+
+"He should turn up his coat-collar, the pig! _V'Ian pour le
+Commissaire!_"
+
+Endymion Westcote did not hear the voice; but as the vehicle rolled
+heavily forward, out of the darkness a snowball struck him accurately
+on the nape of the neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ENCOUNTER BETWEEN A HIGH HORSE AND A HOBBY
+
+
+"Your chocolate will be getting cold, Miss."
+
+Dorothea, refreshed with sleep but still pleasantly tired, lay in bed
+watching Polly as she relaid and lit the fire in the massive Georgian
+grate. These occasions found the service in the Town House short-
+handed, and the girl (a cheerful body, with no airs) turned to and
+took her share in the extra work.
+
+"Have they sent for Mudge?" (Mudge was the Bayfield butler.)
+
+"Lord, no, Miss! Small chance of getting to Mudge, or of Mudge getting
+to us. Why, the snow is half-way up the front door!"
+
+Bed was deliciously warm, and the air in the room nipping, as Dorothea
+found when she stretched out her hand for the cup.
+
+"I always like waking in this room. It gives one a sort of betwixt and
+between feeling--between being at home and on a visit. To be snowed-up
+makes it quite an adventure."
+
+"Pretty adventure for the gentry at 'The Dogs'! Tom Ryder, the dairyman
+there, managed to struggle across just now with the milk, and he says
+that a score of them couldn't get beds in the town for love or money.
+The rest kept it up till four in the morning, and now they're sleeping
+in their fine dresses round the fire in the Orange Room."
+
+Dorothea laughed. "They were caught like this just eighteen years ago--
+let me see--yes, just eighteen. I remember, because it was my second
+ball. But then there were no prisoners filling up the lodgings, so
+everyone found a room."
+
+"Some of the French gentlemen gave up their lodgings last night, and
+are down at 'The Dogs' now keeping themselves warm. There's that old
+Admiral, for one. I'm sure he never ought to be out of bed, with his
+rheumatics. It's enough to give him his death. Sam Zeally says that
+General Rochambeau is looking after him, as tender as a mother with a
+babby."
+
+Polly mimicked Sam's pronunciation, and laughed. She was Somerset-born
+herself, but had seen service in Bath.
+
+"Where is Mr. Endymion?"
+
+"I heard him let himself in just as I was going upstairs after
+undressing you. That would be about one, or a quarter past. But he was
+up again at six, called for Mrs. Morrish to heat his shaving water,
+and had a cup of coffee in his room. He and Mr. Narcissus have gone out
+to see the roll called, and get the volunteers and prisoners to clear
+the streets. Leastways, that's what Mr. Narcissus is doing. I heard
+Mr. Endymion say something about riding off to see what the roads are
+like."
+
+By this time the fire was lit and crackling. Polly loitered awhile,
+arranging the cinders. She had given up asking with whom her mistress
+had danced; but Dorothea usually described the more striking gowns,
+and how this or that lady had worn her hair.
+
+"Tired, Miss?"
+
+"Well, yes, Polly; a little, but not uncomfortably. I danced several
+times last night."
+
+Polly pursed her mouth into an O; but her face was turned to the fire,
+and Dorothea did not see it.
+
+"I hope, Miss, you'll tell me about it later on. But Mrs. Morrish is
+downstairs declaring that no hen will lay an egg in this weather, to
+have it snowed up the next moment. 'Not that I blame mun,' she says,
+'for I wouldn't do it myself,'"--here Polly giggled. "What to find
+for breakfast she don't know, and never will until I go and help her."
+
+Polly departed, leaving her mistress cosy in bed and strangely
+reluctant to rise and part company with her waking thoughts.
+
+Yes; Dorothea had danced twice again with M. Raoul since her discovery
+of his boldness. He had seen her draw the orange curtain over his
+offence, had sought her again and apologised for, it. He had done it
+(he had pleaded) on a sudden impulse--to be a reminder of one kind
+glance which had brightened his exile. 'No one but she was in the
+least likely to recognise the trinket; in any case he would paint it
+out at the first opportunity. And Dorothea had forgiven him. She
+herself had a great capacity for gratitude, and understood the feeling
+far too thoroughly to believe for an instant that M. Raoul could be
+mightily grateful for anything she had said or done. No; whatever the
+feeling which impels a young gentleman to secrete some little private
+reminder of its object, it is not gratitude; and Dorothea rejoiced
+inwardly that it was not. But what then was it? Some attraction of
+sympathy, no doubt. To find herself attractive in any way was a new
+experience and delightful. She had forgiven him on the spot. And
+afterwards they had danced twice together, and he had praised her
+dancing. Also, he had said something about a pretty foot--but
+Frenchmen must always be complimenting.
+
+A noise in the street interrupted her thoughts, and reminded her that
+she must not be dawdling longer in bed. She shut her teeth, made a
+leap for it, and, running to the window, peered over the blind. Some
+score of the prisoners in a gang were clearing the pavement with
+shovels and brushes, laughing and chattering all the while, and
+breaking off to pelt each other with snowballs. She had discussed
+these poor fellows with M. Raoul last night. Could she not in some way
+add to their comfort, or their pleasure? He had dwelt most upon their
+mental weariness, especially on Sundays. Of material discomfort they
+never complained, but they dreaded Sundays worse than they dreaded
+cold weather. Any small distraction now--.
+
+The train of her recollections came to a sudden halt, before a tall
+cheval-glass standing at an obtuse angle to the fireplace and on the
+edge of its broad hearthrug. She had been moving aimlessly from the
+window to the wardrobe in which Polly had folded and laid away her
+last night's finery, and from the wardrobe back to a long sofa at the
+bed's foot. And now she found herself standing before the glass and
+holding her nightgown high enough to display a foot and ankle on which
+she had slipped an ash-coloured stocking and shoe. A tide of red
+flooded her neck and face.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Mrs. Morrish had laid the meal in the ground-floor room, once a
+library, but now used as a bank-parlour--yet still preserving the d
+ignified aspect of a private room: for banking (as the Westcote clients
+were reminded by several sporting prints and a bust of the Medicean
+Venus) was in those days of scarce money a branch of philanthropy
+rather than of trade. The good caretaker was in tears over the
+breakfast. "And I'm sure, Miss, I don't know what's to be done unless
+you can eat bacon."
+
+"Which I can," Dorothea assured her.
+
+"Well, Miss, I am sure I envy you; for ever since that poor French
+Captain Fioupi hanged himself from Mary Odling's bacon-rack, two years
+ago the first of this very next month, I haven't been able to look at
+a bit."
+
+"Poor gentleman! Why did he do it?"
+
+"The Lord knows, Miss. But they said it was home-sickness."
+
+From the street came the voices of Captain Fioupi's compatriots, merry
+at their work. Dorothea had scarcely begun breakfast before her
+brothers entered, and she had to pour out tea for them. Narcissus took
+his seat at once. Endymion stood stamping his feet and warming his
+hands by the fire. He bent and with his finger flicked out a crust of
+snow from between his breeches and the tops of his riding-boots. It
+fell on the hearthstone and sputtered.
+
+"The roads," he announced, are not very bad beyond the bridge. That is
+the worst spot, and I have sent down a gang to clear it. Our guests
+ought to be able to depart before noon, though I won't answer for the
+road Yeovil Way. One carrier--Allworthy--has come through to the
+bridge, but says he passed Solomon's van in a drift about four miles
+back, this side of the Cheriton oak. He reports Bayfield Hill safe
+enough; but that I discovered for myself."
+
+"It seems quite a treat for them," Dorothea remarked.
+
+His eyebrows went up.
+
+"The guests, do you mean?"
+
+He turned to the fire and picked up the tongs.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"No, I mean the prisoners; I was listening to their voices. Just now
+they were throwing snowballs."
+
+Endymion dropped the tongs with a clatter; picked them up, set them in
+place, and faced the room again with a flush which might have come
+from stooping over the fire.
+
+"Come to breakfast, dear," said Dorothea, busy with the tea-urn. "I
+have a small plan I want your permission for, and your help. It is
+about the prisoners. General Rochambeau and M. Raoul--"
+
+"Are doubtless prepared to teach me my business," snapped Endymion,
+who seemed in bad humour this morning.
+
+"No--but listen, dear! They praise you warmly. For whom but my brother
+would these poor men have worked as they did upon the Orange Room--
+and all to show their gratitude? But it appears the worst part of
+captivity is its tedium and the way it depresses the mind; one sees
+that it must be. They dread Sundays most of all. And I said I would
+speak to you, and if any way could be found--"
+
+"My dear Dorothea," Endymion slipped his hands beneath his coat-tails
+and stood astraddle, "I have not often to request you, to mind your
+own affairs; but really when it comes to making a promise in my name--"
+
+"Not a promise."
+
+"May I ask you if you seriously propose to familiarise Axcester with
+all the orgies of a Continental Sabbath? Already the prisoners spend
+Sunday in playing chess, draughts, cards, dominoes; practices which I
+connive at, only insisting that they are kept out of sight, but from
+which I endeavour to wean them--those at least who have a taste for
+music--by encouraging them to, take part in our Church services."
+
+"But I have heard you regret, dear, that only the least respectable
+fall in with this. The rest, being strict Roman Catholics, think it
+wrong."
+
+"Are you quite sure last night did, not over-tire you? You are
+certainly disposed to be argumentative this morning."
+
+"I think," suggested Narcissus, buttering his toast carefully, "you
+might at least hear what Dorothea has to say."
+
+"Oh, certainly! Indeed, if she has been committing me to her projects,
+I have a right to know the worst."
+
+"I haven't committed you--I only said I would ask your advice," poor
+Dorothea stammered. "And I have no project." She caught Narcissus' eye,
+and went on a little more firmly: "Only I thought, perhaps, that if
+you extended their walks a little on Sundays--they are scrupulous in
+keeping their _parole_. And, once in a way, we might entertain them at
+Bayfield--late in the afternoon, when you have finished your Sunday
+nap. Narcissus might show them the pavement and tell them about
+Vespasian--not a regular lecture, it being Sunday, but an informal
+talk, with tea afterwards. And in the evening, perhaps, they might
+meet in the Orange Room for some sacred music--it need not be called
+a 'concert'--" Dorothea stopped short, amazed at her own inventiveness.
+
+"H'm. I envy your simplicity, my dear soul, in believing that the--
+ah--alleged _ennui_ of these men can he cured by a talk about
+Vespasian. But when you go on to talk of sacred music, I must be
+permitted to remind you that a concert is none the less a concert for
+being called by another name. We Britons do not usually allow names to
+disguise facts. A concert--call it even a 'sacred' concert--in the
+Orange Room, amid those distinctly--ah--pagan adornments! I can
+scarcely even term it the thin end of the wedge, so clearly can I see
+it paving the way for other questionable indulgences. I don't doubt
+your good intentions, Dorothea, but you cannot, as a woman, be expected
+to understand how easily the best intentions may convert Axcester, with
+its French community, into a veritable hot-bed of vice. And, by-the-by,
+you might tell Morrish I shall want the horse again in half-an-hour's
+time."
+
+Dorothea left the room on her errand. As she closed the door Narcissus
+looked up from his toast.
+
+"Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!" said he.
+
+"I--ah--beg your pardon?"
+
+Endymion, in the act of seating himself at table, paused to stare.
+
+"Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!" repeated Narcissus. "You needn't have
+snapped Dorothea's head off. I thought her suggestions extremely
+sensible."
+
+"The concert, for instance?"
+
+"Yes! you don't make sacred music irreverent by calling it a concert.
+Moreover, I really don't see why, as intelligent men, they should not
+find Vespasian interesting. His career in many respects resembled the
+Corsican's."
+
+Endymion smiled at his plate.
+
+"Well, well, we will talk about it later on," said he.
+
+He never quarrelled with Narcissus, whose foibles amused him, but for
+whose slow judgment he had a more than brotherly respect.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The Westcotes, though (at due intervals and with due notice given) they
+entertained as handsomely as the Lord Lieutenant himself, were not a
+household to be bounced (so to speak) into promiscuous or extemporised
+hospitality. For an ordinary dinner-party, Dorothea would pen the
+invitations three weeks ahead, Endymion devote an hour to selecting his
+guests, and Narcissus spend a morning in the Bayfield cellar, which he
+supervised and in which he took a just pride. And so well was this
+inelasticity recognised, so clearly was it understood that by no
+circumstances could Endymion Westcote permit himself to be upset, that
+none of the snowed-up company at "The Dogs" thought a bit the worse of
+him for having gone home and left them to shift as best they could.
+
+Dorothea, when at about half-past ten she put on her bonnet and cloak
+and stepped down to visit them--the prisoners having by that time
+cleared the pavement--found herself surrounded by a crew humorously
+apologetic for their toilettes, profoundly envious of her better luck,
+but on excellent terms with one another and the younger ones, at any
+rate, who had borne the worst of the discomfort--enjoying the
+adventure thoroughly.
+
+"But the life and soul of it all was that M. Raoul," confessed Lady
+Bateson's niece.
+
+"By George!" echoed the schoolboy who had danced the "Soldier's Joy"
+with Dorothea, "I wouldn't have believed it of a Frenchy."
+
+For some reason Dorothea was not too well pleased.
+
+"But I do not see M. Raoul."
+
+"Oh, he's down by the bridge, helping the relief party. One would guess
+him worn out. He ran from lodging to lodging, turning the occupants out
+of their beds and routing about for fresh linen. They say he even
+carried old Mrs. Kekewich pick-a-back through the snow."
+
+"And tucked her in bed," added the schoolboy. "And then he came back,
+wet almost to the waist, and danced."
+
+He looked roguishly at Lady Bateson's niece, and the pair exploded in
+laughter.
+
+They ran off as General Rochambeau, jaded and unshaven, approached and
+saluted Dorothea.
+
+"Until Miss Westcote appeared, we held our own against the face of day.
+Now, alas, the conspiracy can no longer be kept up."
+
+"You had no compliment for me last night, General."
+
+"Forgive me, Mademoiselle." He lowered his voice and spoke earnestly.
+"I have a genuine one for you to-day--I compliment your heart. M. Raoul
+has told me of your interest in our poor compatriots, and what you
+intend--"
+
+"I fear I can do little," Dorothea interrupted, mindful of her late
+encounter and (as she believed) defeat. "By all accounts, M. Raoul
+appears to have made himself agreeable to all," she added.
+
+The old gentleman chuckled and took snuff.
+
+"He loves an audience. At about four in the morning, when all the
+elders were in bed--(pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I claim to reckon
+myself among _les jeunes_; my poor back tells me at what cost)--at
+about four in the morning the young lady who has just left you spoke
+of a new dance she had seen performed this season at Bath. Well, it
+appears that M. Raoul had also seen it a--valtz they called it, or
+some such name. Whereupon nothing would do but they must dance it
+together. Such a dance, Mademoiselle! Roll, roll--round and round--
+roll, roll--but _perpendicularly_, you understand. By-and-by the
+others began to copy them, and someone asked M. Raoul where he had
+found this accomplishment. 'Oh, in my travels,' says he, and points
+to one of the panels; and there, if you will believe me, the fellow
+had actually painted himself as Perseus in the Garden of the
+Hesperides."
+
+Poor Dorothea glanced towards the panel.
+
+"Ah, you remember it! But he must have painted in the face after
+showing it to us the other day, or I should have recognised it at the
+time. You must come and see it; really an excellent portrait!"
+
+He led her towards it. The orange curtain no longer hid the third
+nymph. But the blood which had left Dorothea's face rushed back as
+she saw that the trinket had been roughly erased.
+
+"It was quite a _coup_, but M. Raoul loves an audience."
+
+Shortly before noon the road by the bridge was reported to be clear.
+Carriages were announced, and the guests shook hands and were rolled
+away--the elder glum, their juniors in boisterous spirits. As each
+carriage passed the bridge, where M. Raoul stood among the workmen,
+handkerchiefs fluttered out, and he lifted his hat gaily in response.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+BEGINS WITH ANCIENT HISTORY AND ENDS WITH AN OLD STORY
+
+
+"_Ubicunque vicit Romanus habitat_,--Where the Roman conquered he
+settled--and it is from his settlements that to-day we deduce his
+conquests. Of Vespasian and his second legion the jejune page of
+Suetonius records neither where they landed nor at what limit their
+victorious eagles were stayed. Yet will the patient investigator trace
+their footprints across many a familiar landscape of rural England,
+led by the blurred imperishable impress he has learned to recognise.
+The invading host sweeps forward, and is gone; but behind it the
+homestead arises and smiles upon the devastated fields, arms yield to
+the implements and habiliments of peace, and the colonist, who
+supersedes the legionary, in time furnishes the sole evidence of his
+feverish and ensanguined transit . . ."
+
+Narcissus was enjoying himself amazingly. His audience endured him
+because the experience was new, and their ears caught the rattle of
+tea-cups in the adjoining library.
+
+Dorothea sat counting her guests, and assuring herself that the number
+of teacups would suffice. She had heard the lecture many times before,
+and with repetition its sonorous periods had lost hold upon her,
+although her brother had been at pains to model them upon Gibbon.
+
+But the scene impressed her sharply, and she carried away a very
+lively picture of it. The old Roman villa had been built about a
+hollow square open to the sky, and this square now formed the great
+hall of Bayfield. Deep galleries of two stories surrounded it, in
+place of the old colonnaded walk. Out of these opened the principal
+rooms of the house, and above them, upon a circular lantern of clear
+glass, was arched a painted dome. Sheathed on the outside with green
+weather-tinted copper, and surmounted by a gilt ball, this dome (which
+could be seen from the Axcester High Street when winter stripped the
+Bayfield elms) gave the building something of the appearance of an
+observatory.
+
+On the north side of the hall a broad staircase descended from the
+gallery to the tiled floor, in the midst of which a fountain played
+beneath a cupola supported by slender columns. On the west the recess
+beneath the gallery had been deepened to admit a truly ample fireplace,
+with a flat hearthstone and andirons. Here were screens and rich Turkey
+rugs, and here the Bayfield household ordinarily had the lamps set
+after dinner and gathered before the fire, talking little, enjoying the
+long pauses filled with the hiss of logs and the monotonous drip and
+trickle of water in the penumbra.
+
+To-day the prisoners--two hundred in all--crowded the floor, the
+stairs, even the deep gallery above; but on the south side, facing the
+staircase, two heavy curtains had been looped back from the atrium,
+and there a ray of wintry sunshine fell through the glass roof upon
+the famous Bayfield pavement and the figure of Narcissus gravely
+expounding it.
+
+He had reached his peroration, and Dorothea, who knew every word of it
+by heart, was on the alert. At its close the audience held their breath
+for a second or two and then--satisfied, as their hostess rose, that
+he had really come to an end--tendered their applause, and, breaking
+into promiscuous chatter, trooped towards the tea-room. Narcissus
+lingered, with bent head, oblivious, silently repeating the last well-
+worn sentences while he conned his beloved tessellae.
+
+A voice aroused him from his brown study; he looked up, to find the
+hall deserted and M. Raoul standing at his elbow.
+
+"Will you remember your promise, Monsieur, and allow me to examine a
+little more closely? Ah, but it is wonderful! That Pentheus! And the
+Maenad there, carrying the torn limb! Also the border of vine-leaves
+and crossed thyrsi; though that, to be sure, is usual enough. And this
+next? Ah, I remember--_'Tu cum parentis regna per arduum'_; but what a
+devil of a design! And, above all, what mellowness! You will, I know,
+pardon the enthusiasm of one who comes from the Provence, a few miles
+out of Arles, and whose mother's family boasts itself to be descended
+from Roman colonists."
+
+Narcissus beamed.
+
+"To you then, M. Raoul, after your Forum and famous Amphitheatre, our
+pavement must seem a poor trifle--though it by no means exhausts our
+list of interesting remains. The praefurnium, for instance; I must
+show you our praefurnium."
+
+"The house would be remarkable anywhere--even in my own Provence--so
+closely has it kept the original lines. In half-an-hour one could
+reconstruct--"
+
+"Ay!" chimed in the delighted Narcissus. "You shall try, M. Raoul,
+you shall try! I promise to catch you tripping."
+
+"Yonder runs the Fosse Way, west by south. The villa stands about two
+hundred yards back from it, facing the south-east--"
+
+"A little east of south. The outer walls did not run exactly true with
+the enclosed quadrangle."
+
+"You say that the front measured two hundred feet, perhaps a little
+over. Clearly, then, it was a domain of much importance, and the
+granaries, mills, stables, slaves' dwellings would occupy much space
+about it--an acre and a half, at least."
+
+"Portions of a brick foundation were unearthed no less than three
+hundred yards away.  A hypocaust lay embedded among them, much broken
+but recognisable."
+
+"What puzzles me," mused M. Raoul, is how these southern settlers
+managed to endure the climate."
+
+"But that is explicable." Narcissus was off now, in full cry. "The
+trees, my dear sir, the trees! I have not the slightest doubt that our
+Bayfield elms are the ragged survivors of an immense forest--a forest
+which covered the whole primaeval face of Somerset on this side of the
+fens, and through which Vespasian's road-makers literally hewed their
+way. Given these forests--which, by the way, extended over the greater
+part of England--we must infer a climate totally unlike ours of this
+present day, damper perhaps, but milder. Within his belt of trees the
+colonist, secure from the prevailing winds, would plant a garden to
+rival your gardens of the South--_'primus vere rosam atque autumno
+carpere Poma.'_"
+
+"Yes," added M. Raoul, taking fire; "and, perhaps, a plant of
+helichryse or a rose-cutting from Paestum, to twine about the house-
+pillars and comfort his exile."
+
+"M. Raoul?" Dorothea's voice interrupted them. She stood by the looped
+curtain, and reproached Narcissus with a look. "He has had no tea yet;
+it was cruel of you to detain him. My brother, sir," she turned to
+Raoul, "has no conscience when once set going on his hobby; for, of
+course, you were discussing the pavement?"
+
+"We were talking, Mademoiselle, at that moment of the things which
+brighten and comfort exile."
+
+She lowered her eyes, conscious of a blush, and half angry that it
+would not be restrained.
+
+"And I was talking of tea, if that happens to be one of them," she
+replied, forcing a laugh.
+
+"Well, well," said Narcissus, "take M. Raoul away and give him his tea;
+but he must come with me afterwards, while there is light, and we will
+go over the site together. I must fetch my map."
+
+He hurried across the hall.
+
+"Come, M. Raoul," said Dorothea, stepping past her guest and leading
+the way, "by a small detour we can reach that end of the library which
+is least crowded."
+
+He followed without lifting his eyes, apparently lost in thought. The
+atrium on this side opened on a corridor which crossed the front door,
+and was closed by a door at either end--the one admitting to the
+service rooms, the other to the library. Flat columns relieved the
+blank wall of this passage, with monstrous copies of Raphael's cartoons
+filling the interspaces; on the other hand four tall windows, two on
+either side of the door, looked out upon the _porte cochère_, the avenue,
+and the rolling hills beyond Axcester. By one of these windows M. Raoul
+halted--and Dorothea halted too, slightly puzzled.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, but there is one thing your brother forgets! What
+became of his happy colonists in the end? He told us that early in the
+fifth century the Emperor Honorius--was it not?--withdrew his
+legions, and wrote that Britain must henceforth look after itself. I
+listened for the end of the story, but your brother did not supply it.
+Yet sooner or later one and the same dreadful fate must have overtaken
+all these pleasant scattered homes--sack and fire and slaughter--
+slaughter for all the men, for the women slavery and worse. Does one
+hear of any surviving? Out of this warm life into silence--" He paused
+and shivered. "Very likely they did not guess for a long while. Look,
+Mademoiselle, at the Fosse Way, stretching yonder across the hills:
+figure yourself a daughter of the old Roman homestead standing here and
+watching the little cloud of dust that meant the retreating column, the
+last of your protection. You would not guess what it meant--you, to
+whom each day has brought its restful round; who have lived only to be
+good and reflect the sunshine upon all near you. And I--your slave,
+suppose me, standing beside you--might guess as little."
+
+He took a step and touched her hand. His face was still turned to the
+window.
+
+"Time! time!" he went on in a low voice, charged with passion. "It
+eats us all! Brr--how I hate it! How I hate the grave! There lies the
+sting, Mademoiselle--the torture to be a captive: to feel one's best
+days slipping away, and fate still denying to us poor devils the chance
+which even the luckiest--God knows--find little enough." He laughed,
+and to Dorothea the laugh sounded passing bitter. "You will not
+understand how a man feels; how even so unimportant a creature as I
+must bear a sort of personal grudge against his fate."
+
+"I am trying to understand," said Dorothea, gently.
+
+"But this you can understand, how a prisoner loves the sunshine: not
+because, through his grating, it warms him; but because it is the
+sunshine, and he sees it. Mademoiselle, I am not grateful; I see
+merely, and adore. Some day you shall pause by this window and see a
+cloud of dust on the Fosse Way--the last of us prisoners as they march
+us from Axcester to the place of our release; and, seeing it, you shall
+close the book upon a chapter, but not without remembering"--he
+touched her hand again, but now his fingers closed on it, and he raised
+it to his lips,--"not without remembering how and when one Frenchman
+said, 'God bless you, Mademoiselle Dorothea!'"
+
+Dorothea's eyes were wet when, a moment later, Narcissus came bustling
+through the atrium with a roll of papers in his hand.
+
+"Ah, this is luck!" he cried. "I was starting to search for you."
+
+He either assumed that they had visited the tea-room or forgot all
+about it; and M. Raoul's look implored Dorothea not to explain.
+
+"Suppose we take the _triclinium_ first, on the north side of the
+house. That, sir, will tell you whether I am right or wrong about the
+climate of those days. A summer parlour facing north, and with no
+trace of heating-flues! . . ."
+
+He led off his captive, and Dorothea heard his expository tones gather
+volume as the pair crossed the great hall beneath the dome. Then she
+turned the handle of the library door, and was instantly deafened by
+the babel within.
+
+The guests took their departure a little before sunset. M. Raoul was
+not among the long train which shook hands with her and filed down the
+avenue at the heels of M. de Tocqueville and General Rochambeau.
+Twenty minutes later, while the servants were setting the hall in
+order, she heard her brother's voice beneath the window of her boudoir,
+explaining the system on which the Romans warmed their houses.
+
+She had picked up a religious book, but found herself unable to fix her
+attention upon it or even to sit still. Her hand still burned where
+M. Raoul's lips had touched it. She recalled Endymion's prophecy that
+these entertainments would throw the domestic mechanism--always more
+delicately poised on Sundays than on weekdays--completely oft its
+pivot. She had pledged herself to prevent this, and had made a private
+appeal to the maidservants with whose Sunday-out they interfered. They
+had responded loyally.
+
+Still, this was the first experiment; she would go down to the hall
+again and make sure that the couches were in position, the cushions
+shaken up, the pot-plants placed around the fountain so accurately that
+Endymion's nice eye for small comforts could detect no excuse for
+saying, "I told you so."
+
+As she passed along the gallery her eyes sought the pillar beside which
+M. Raoul had stood during the lecture. By the foot of it a book lay
+face downwards--a book cheaply bound between boards of mottled paper.
+She picked it up and read the title; it was a volume of Rousseau's
+Confessions--a book of which she remembered to have heard. On the
+flyleaf was written the owner's name in full--"Charles Marie Fabien
+de Raoul."
+
+Dorothea hurried downstairs with it and past the servants tidying the
+hall.
+
+She looked to find M. Raoul still buttonholed and held captive by
+Narcissus at the eastern angle of the house. But before she reached the
+front door she happened--though perhaps it was not quite accidental--
+to throw a glance through the window by which he had stood and talked
+with her, and saw him striding away down the avenue in the dusk.
+
+She returned to her room and summoned Polly.
+
+"You know M. Raoul? He has left, forgetting this book, which belongs to
+him. Run down to the small gate, that's a good girl--you will overtake
+him easily, since he is walking round by the avenue--and return it,
+with my compliments."
+
+Polly picked up her skirts and ran. A narrow path slanted down across
+the slope of the park to the nurseries--a sheltered corner in which
+the Bayfield gardener grew his more delicate evergreens--and here a
+small wicket-gate opened on the high road.
+
+The gate stood many feet above the road, which descended the hill
+between steep hedges. She heard M. Raoul's footstep as she reached it,
+and, peering over, saw him before he caught sight of her; indeed, he
+had almost passed with-out when she hailed him.
+
+"Holloa!" He swung almost rightabout and smiled up pleasantly. "Is it
+highway robbery? If so, I surrender."
+
+Polly laughed, showing a fine set of teeth.
+
+"I'm 'most out of breath," she answered. "You've left your book behind,
+and my mistress sent it after you with her compliments." She held it
+above the gate.
+
+He sprang up the bank towards her. "And a pretty book, too, to be
+found in your hands! You haven't been reading it, I hope."
+
+"La, no! Is it wicked?"
+
+"Much depends on where you happen to open it. Now if your sweetheart--"
+
+"Who told you I had one?"
+
+"Tut-tut-tut! What's his name?"
+
+"Well, if you must know, I'm walking out with Corporal Zeally. But what
+are you doing to the book?" For M. Raoul had taken out a penknife and
+was slicing out page after page--in some places whole blocks of pages
+together.
+
+"When I've finished, I'm going to ask you to take it back to your
+mistress; and then no doubt you'll be reading it on the sly. Here, I
+must sit down: suppose you let me perch myself on the top bar of the
+gate. Also, it would be kind of you to put up an arm and prevent my
+overbalancing."
+
+"I shouldn't think of it."
+
+"Oh, very well!" He climbed up, laid the book on his knee and went on
+slicing. "I particularly want her to read M. Rousseau's reflections on
+the Pont du Gard; but I don't seem to have a book marker, unless you
+lend me a lock of your hair."
+
+"Were you the gentleman she danced with, at 'The Dogs,' the night of
+the snowstorm?"
+
+"The Pont du Gard, my dear, is a Roman antiquity, and has nothing to
+do with dancing. If, as I suppose, you refer to the 'Pont de Lodi,'
+that is a totally different work of art."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
+
+"And I don't intend that you shall."
+
+He cut a small strip of braid from his coat, inserted it for a
+bookmarker, and began to fold away the excised pages. "That's why I am
+keeping these back for my own perusal, and perhaps Corporal Zeally's."
+
+"Do you know him?" She reached up to take the book he was holding out
+in his left hand, and the next instant his right arm was round her neck
+and he had kissed her full on the lips. "Oh, you wretch!" she cried,
+breaking free; and laughed, next moment, as he nearly toppled off the
+gate.
+
+"Know him? Why of course I do." M. Raoul was reseating himself on his
+perch, when he happened to throw a look down into the road, and at
+once broke into immoderate laughter. "Talk of the wolf--"
+
+Polly screamed and ran. Below, at a bend of the road, stood a stoutish
+figure in the uniform of the Axcester Volunteers--scarlet, with white
+facings. It was Corporal Zeally, very slowly taking in the scene.
+
+M. Raoul skipped off the gate and stepped briskly past him. "Good-
+evening, Corporal! We're both of us a little behind time, this
+evening!" said he as he went by.
+
+The Corporal pivoted on his heels and stared after him.
+
+"Dang my living buttons!" he said, reflectively. "Couldn't even wait
+till my back was turned, but must kiss the maid under my nose!" He
+paused and rubbed his chin. "Her looked like Polly and her zounded
+like Polly . . . Dang this dimpsey old light, I've got a good mind to
+run after'n and ax'n who 'twas!" He took a step down the hill, but
+thought better, of it. "No, I won't," he said; "I'll go and ax Polly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FATE IN A LAURELLED POST-CHAISE
+
+
+All the tongues of Rumour agreed that the Bayfield entertainment had
+been a success, and Endymion Westcote received many congratulations
+upon it at the next meeting of magistrates.
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense!" he protested lightly. "One must do something to
+make life more tolerable to the poor devils, and 'pon my word 'twas
+worth it to see their gratitude. They behaved admirably. You see, two-
+thirds of them are gentlemen, after a fashion; not, perhaps, quite in
+the sense in which we understand the word, but then the--ah--modicum
+of French blood in my veins counteracts, I dare say, some little
+insular prejudices."
+
+"My dear fellow, about such men as de Tocqueville and Rochambeau there
+can be no possible question."
+
+"Ah! I'm extremely glad to hear you say so. I feared, perhaps, the way
+they managed their table-napkins--"
+
+"Not at all. I was thinking rather of your bold attitude towards
+Sunday observance. What does Milliton say?"
+
+Endymion's eyebrows went up. Mr. Milliton was the vicar of Axcester
+and the living lay in the Westcotes' gift.  I am not--ah--aware that
+I consulted Milliton. On such questions I recognise no responsibility
+save to my own conscience. He has not been complaining, I trust?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge."
+
+"Ah!"  Endymion looked as if Mr. Milliton had better not. "I take, you
+must know, a somewhat broad view on such matters--may I, without
+offence, term it a liberal one? As a matter of fact I intend going yet
+farther in the direction and granting permission for a small reunion on
+Sunday evenings at 'The Dogs,' when selections of purely sacred music
+will be performed. I shall, of course, deprecate the name 'concert ';
+and even 'performance' may seem to carry with it some--ah--
+suggestions of a theatrical nature. But, as Shakespeare says, 'What's
+in a name?' Perhaps you can suggest a more suitable one?"
+
+"A broad-minded fellow," was the general verdict; and some admirers
+added that ideas which in weaker men might seem to lean towards free
+thought, and even towards Jacobinism, became Mr. Westcote handsomely
+enough. He knew how to carry them off, to wear them lightly as
+flourishes and ornaments of his robust common sense, and might be
+trusted not to go too far. Endymion, who had an exquisite flair for the
+approval of his own class, soon learned to take an honest pride in his
+liberalism and to enjoy its discreet display. 'The entertainment at
+Bayfield' was nothing--a private experiment only; the unfamiliar must
+be handled gently; a good rule to try it on your own household before
+tackling the world. As a matter of fact, old Narcissus had enjoyed it.
+But if the neighbouring families were really curious, and would promise
+not to be shocked, they must come to "The Dogs" some Sunday evening:
+No, not next Sunday, but in a week or two's time when the prisoners,
+as intelligent fellows, would have grasped his notions.'
+
+Sure enough, on the third Sunday he brought a round dozen of guests;
+and the entrance of the Bayfield party (punctually five minutes late),
+and their solemn taking of seats in the two front rows, thereafter
+became a feature of these entertainments. On the first occasion the
+musicians stopped, out of respect, in the middle of a motet of
+Scarlatti's; but Endymion gave orders that in future this was not
+to be.
+
+"I have been something of an amateur myself," he explained, "and know
+what is due to Art."
+
+It vexed Dorothea to note that after the first two or three
+performances some of her best friends among the prisoners absented
+themselves, General Rochambeau for one. Indeed, the General had taken
+to declining all invitations, and rarely appeared abroad. One March
+morning, meeting him in the High Street, she made bold to tax him with
+the change and ask his reasons.
+
+The hour was eleven in the forenoon, the busiest of the day. In twenty
+minutes the London coach would be due with the mails, and this always
+brought the prisoners out into the street. The largest crowd gathered
+in front of "The Dogs," waiting to see the horses changed and the bags
+unloaded. But a second hung around the Post Office, where the
+Commissary received and distributed the prisoners' letters, while
+lesser groups shifted and moved about at the tail of the butchers'
+carts, and others laden with milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables from the
+country; for Axcester had now a daily market, and in the few minutes
+before the mail's arrival the salesmen drove their best trade.
+
+General Rochambeau tapped his snuffbox meditatively, like a man in two
+minds. But he kept a sidelong eye upon Dorothea, as she turned to
+acknowledge a bow from the Vicomte de Tocqueville. The Vicomte, with
+an air of amused contempt, was choosing a steak for his dinner, using
+his gold-ferruled walking-stick to direct the butcher how to cut it
+out, while his servant stood ready with a plate.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mademoiselle, I find a hand at picquet with
+the Admiral less fatiguing for two old gentlemen than these public
+gaieties."
+
+"In other words, you are nursing him. They tell me he has never been
+well since that night of the snowstorm."
+
+"Your informants may now add that he is better; these few Spring days
+have done wonders for his rheumatism, and, indeed, he is dressed and
+abroad this morning."
+
+"Which explains why you are willing to stop and chat with me, instead
+of hurrying off to the Post Office to ask for his letter--that letter
+which never comes."
+
+"So M. Raoul has been telling you all about us?"
+
+Dorothea blushed.
+
+"He happened to speak of it, at one of my working parties--"
+
+"He has a fine gift for the pathetic, that young man; oh, yes, and a
+pretty humour too! I can fancy what he makes of us--poor old Damon
+and Pythias--while he holds the skeins; with a smile for poor old
+Pythias' pigtail, and a tremor of the voice for the Emperor's
+_tabatière_, and a tear, no doubt, for the letter which never comes.
+M. Raoul is great with an audience."
+
+"You do him injustice, General. An audience of half-a-dozen old women!"
+
+General Rochambeau had an answer to this on his tongue, but repressed
+it.
+
+"Ah, here comes the Admiral!" he cried, as the gaunt old man came
+shuffling down the street towards them, with his stoop, his cross-
+grained features drawn awry with twinges of rheumatism, his hands
+crossed above his tall cane. All Axcester laughed at his long blue
+surtout, his pigtail and little round hat. But Dorothea always found
+him formidable, and wanted to run away. "Admiral, I was just about to
+tell Miss Westcote that the time is come to congratulate her. Here is
+winter past--except that of two years ago, the hardest known in
+Axcester; and, thanks to her subscription lists and working parties,
+our countrymen have never gone so well fed and warmly clad."
+
+"Which," growled the Admiral, "does not explain why no less than eight
+of them have broken their parole.  An incredible, a shameful number!"
+
+"As time goes on, Admiral, they grow less patient. Hope deferred--"
+
+_Ta-ra, tara-ra! Ta-ra, tara-ra-ra!_ The notes of the guard's horn
+broke in upon Dorothea's excuse. Groups scattered, market carts were
+hastily backed alongside the pavement, and down the mid-thoroughfare
+came the mail at a gallop, with crack of whip and rushing chime of
+bits and swingle-bars.
+
+Dorothea watched the crowd closing round it as it drew up by "The
+Dogs," and turned to note that the Admiral's face was pale and his
+eyes sought those of his old friend.
+
+"Better leave it to me to-day, if Miss Westcote will excuse me."
+
+General Rochambeau lifted his hat and hurried after the crowd.
+
+Then Dorothea understood. The old man beside her had lost courage to
+pick up his old habit; at the last moment his friend must go for the
+letter which never came. She cast about to say something; her last
+words had been of hope deferred--it would not do to take up her
+speech there . . .
+
+The Admiral seemed to meet her eyes with an effort. He put out a hand.
+
+"It is not good, Mademoiselle, that a man should pity himself. Beware
+how you teach that; beware how you listen to him then."
+
+He turned from her abruptly and tottered away. Glancing aside, she met
+the Vicomte de Tocqueville's tired smile; he was using his cane to
+prod the butcher and recall his attention to the half-cut steak. But
+the butcher continued to stare down the street.
+
+"Eh? But, dear me, it sounds like an _émeute_," said the Vicomte,
+negligently; at the same time stepping to Dorothea's side.
+
+The murmur of the crowd in front of "The Dogs" had been swelling, and
+now broke into sharp, angry cries for a moment; then settled into a
+dull roar, and rose in a hoarse _crescendo_. The mail coach was
+evidently not the centre of disturbance, though Dorothea could see its
+driver waving his arm and gesticulating from the box. The noise came
+ahead of it, some twenty yards lower down the hill, where the street
+had suddenly grown black with people pressing and swaying.
+
+"There seems no danger here, whatever it is," said the Vicomte,
+glancing up at the house-front above.
+
+"Please go and see what is the matter. I am safe enough," Dorothea
+assured him. "The folks in the house will give me shelter, if
+necessary."
+
+The Vicomte lifted his hat. "I will return and report promptly, if the
+affair be serious."
+
+But it was not serious. The tumult died down, and Dorothea with her
+riding-switch was guarding the half-cut steak from a predatory dog
+when the Vicomte and the butcher returned together.
+
+"Reassure yourself, Miss Westcote," said M. de Tocqueville. "There has
+been no bloodshed, though bloodshed was challenged. It appears that
+almost as the coach drew up there arrived from the westward a post-
+chaise conveying a young naval officer from Plymouth, with despatches
+and (I regret to tell it) a flag. His Britannic Majesty has captured
+another of our frigates; and the high spirited young gentleman was
+making the most of it in all innocence, and without an idea that his
+triumph could offend anyone in Axcester. Unfortunately, on his way up
+the street, he waved the captured tricolor under the nose of your
+brother's _protégé_, M. Raoul--"
+
+"M. Raoul!" Dorothea caught her breath on the name.
+
+"And M. Raoul leapt into the chaise, then and there wrested the flag
+from him--the more easily no doubt because he expected nothing so
+little and holding it aloft, challenged him to mortal combat.
+Theatrically, and apart from the taste of it (I report only from
+hearsay), the coup must have been immensely successful. When I
+arrived, your brother was restoring peace, the young Briton holding
+out his hand--swearing he was sorry, begad! but how the deuce was he
+to have known ?--and M. Raoul saving the situation, and still
+demanding blood with a face as long as an Alexandrine:
+
+"_'Ce drapeau glorieux auquel, en sanglotant,
+Se prosternent affaises vos membres, veterans!'_
+
+"'Vary sorry, damitol, shake hands, beg your pardon.'"
+
+The Vicomte forgot his languor, and burlesqued the scene with real
+talent.
+
+Dorothea, however, was not amused.
+
+"You say my brother is at 'The Dogs,' Monsieur? I think I will go
+to him."
+
+"You must allow me, then, to escort you."
+
+"Oh, the street is quite safe. Your countrymen will not suspect me of
+exulting over their misfortunes."
+
+"Nevertheless--" he insisted, and walked beside her.
+
+ A mixed crowd of French and English still surrounded the chaise, to
+which a couple of postboys were attaching the relay: the French no
+longer furious, now that an apology had been offered and the flag
+hidden, but silent and sulky yet; the English inclined to think the
+young lieutenant hardly served, not to say churlishly. Frenchmen might
+be thin-skinned; but war was war, and surely Britons had a right to
+raise three cheers for a victory. Besides he had begged pardon at once,
+and offered to shake hands like a gentleman--that is, as soon as he
+discovered whose feelings were hurt; for naturally the fisticuffs had
+come first, and in these Master Raoul had taken as good as he brought.
+As the Vicomte cleared a path for her to the porch, where Endymion
+stood shaking hands and bidding adieu, Dorothea caught her first and
+last glimpse of this traveller, who--without knowing it, without
+seeing her face to remember it, or even learning her name--was to
+deflect the slow current of her life, and send it whirling down a
+strange channel, giddy, precipitous, to an end unguessed.
+
+She saw a fresh-complexioned lad, somewhat flushed and red in the face,
+but of frank and pleasant features; dressed in a three-cornered cocked-
+hat, blue coat piped with white and gilt-buttoned, white breeches and
+waistcoat, and broad black sword-belt; a youngster of the sort that
+loves a scrimmage or a jest, but is better in a scrimmage than in a
+jest when the laugh goes against him. He was eying the chaise just now,
+and obviously cursing the hour in which he had decorated it with laurel.
+
+Yet on the whole in a trying situation he bore himself well.
+
+"Ah, much obliged to you, Vicomte!" Endymion hailed the pair. "There
+has been a small misunderstanding, my dear Dorothea; not the slightest
+cause for alarm! Still, you had better pass through to the coffee-room
+and wait for me."
+
+Dorothea dismissed M. de Tocqueville with a bow, passed into the dark
+passage and pushed open the coffee-room door.
+
+Within sat a young man, his elbows on the table, and his face bowed
+upon his arms. His fingers convulsively twisted a torn scrap of
+bunting; his shoulders heaved. It was M. Raoul.
+
+Dorothea paused in the doorway and spoke his name. He did not look up.
+
+She stepped towards him.
+
+"M. Raoul!"
+
+A sob shook him. She laid a hand gently on his bowed head, on the dark
+wave of hair above his strong, shapely neck. She was full of pity,
+longing to comfort . . .
+
+"M. Raoul!"
+
+He started, gazed up at her, and seized her hand. His eyes swam with
+tears, but behind the tears blazed a light which frightened her. Yet--
+oh, surely!--she could not mistake it.
+
+"Dorothea!"
+
+He held both her hands now. He was drawing her towards him. She could
+not speak. The room swam; outside the window she heard the noise of
+starting hoofs, of wheels, of the English crowd hurrahing as the chaise
+rolled away. Her head almost touched M. Raoul's breast. Then she broke
+loose, as her brother's step sounded in the passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LOVE AND AN OLD MAID
+
+
+I pray you be gentle with Dorothea. Find, if you can, something
+admirable in this plain spinster keeping, at the age of thirty-seven,
+a room in her breast adorned and ready for first love; find it pitiful,
+if you must, that the blind boy should mistake his lodging; only do
+not laugh, or your laughter may accuse you in the sequel.
+
+She had a most simple heart. Wonder filled it as she rode home to
+Bayfield, and by the bridge she reined up Mercury as if to take her
+bearings in an unfamiliar country. At her feet rushed the Axe, swollen
+by spring freshets; a bullfinch, wet from his bath, bobbed on the sand-
+stone parapet, shook himself, and piped a note or two; away up the
+stream, among the alders, birds were chasing and courting; from above
+the Bayfield elms, out of spaces of blue, the larks' song fell like a
+din of innumerable silver hammers. Either new sense had been given her,
+or the rains had washed the landscape and restored obliterated lines,
+colours, meanings. The very leaves by the roadside were fragrant as
+flowers.
+
+For the moment it sufficed to know that she was loved, and that she
+loved. She was no fool. At the back of all her wonder lay the certainty
+that in the world's eyes such love as hers was absurd; that it must end
+where it began; that Raoul could never be hers, nor she escape from a
+captivity as real as his. But, perhaps because she knew all this so
+certainly, she could put it aside. This thing had come to her: this
+happiness to which, alone, in darkness, depressed by every look into
+the mirror, by every casual proof that her brothers and intimates
+accepted the verdict as final, her soul had been loyal--a forgotten
+servant of a neglectful lord. In the silence of her own room, in her
+garden, in the quiet stir of household duties, and again during the
+long evenings while she sat knitting by the fire and her brothers
+talked, she had pondered much upon love and puzzled herself with many
+questions. She had watched girls and their lovers, wives and their
+husbands. Can love (she had asked) draw near and pass and go its way
+unrecognised? She had conned the signs. Now the hour had come, and she
+had needed none of her learning--eyes, hands, and voice, she had
+known the authentic god.
+
+And she knew that it was not absurd; she knew herself worthy of love's
+belated condescension--not Raoul's; for the moment she scarcely
+thought of Raoul; for the moment Raoul's image grew faint and
+indefinite in the glory of being loved. Instinct, too, thrust it into
+the background; for as Raoul grew definite so must his youth, his
+circumstances, the world's laughter, the barriers never to be overcome.
+But merely to be loved, and to rest in that knowledge awhile--here
+were no barriers. The thing had happened: it was: nothing could forbid
+or efface it.
+
+Yet when she reached home, after forcing the astonished Mercury to
+canter up the entire length of Bayfield hill, she must walk straight
+to her room, and study her face in the glass.
+
+"It has happened to you--to you! Why has it not transfigured you?--
+but then people would guess. Your teeth stand out--well, not so very
+prominently--but they stand out, and that is why foreigners laugh at
+Englishwomen. Yes, it has happened to you; but why? how?"
+It so happened that she must meet him the next day. Narcissus had
+engaged him to make drawings of the Bayfield pavement, a new series to
+supersede hers in an enlarged edition of the treatise. Every one of
+the _tessellae_ was to be drawn to scale, and she must meet him
+to-morrow in the library with her brother and receive instructions, for
+she had promised to help in taking measurements.
+
+When the time came, and she entered the library, she did not indeed
+dare to lift her eyes. But Narcissus, already immersed in calculations,
+scarcely looked up from his paper. "Ah, there you are! Have you brought
+the India-ink?" he asked, and after a minute she marvelled at her own
+self-possession. Even when he left them to work out the measurements
+together (and it flashed upon her that henceforth they would often be
+left together, her immunity being taken for granted), she kept her head
+bowed over the papers and managed to control her voice to put one or
+two ordinary questions--until the pencil dropped from her fingers and
+she felt her hand imprisoned.
+
+"Dorothea!"
+
+"Oh, please, no!" she entreated hoarsely. "M. Raoul--!"
+
+"Charles--" She attempted to draw her hand away; but, failing, lifted
+her eyes for mercy. They were sick and troubled. "Charles," he insisted.
+
+"Charles, then." She relented and he kissed her gaily. It was as if she
+drank in the kiss and, the next moment, recoiled from it. He released
+her hand and waited, watching her. She stood upright by the table, her
+shoulder turned to him, her eyes gazing through the long window upon
+the green stretch of lawn. She was trembling slightly.
+
+"It--it hurts like a wound," she murmured, and her hand went up to her
+breast. "But you must listen, please. You know--better than I--that
+this is the end. Oh, yes"--as he would have interrupted--"it is
+beautiful--for me. But I am old and you are a boy, and it is all quite
+silly. Please listen: even apart from this, it would be quite silly and
+could end nowhere."
+
+He caught at her hand again, and she let it lie in his.
+
+"Nowhere," she repeated, and, lifting her head, nodded twice. Her eyes
+were brimming.
+
+"But if you love me?" he began.
+
+She waited a moment, but he did not finish. "Ah! there it is, you see:
+you cannot finish. I was afraid to meet you to-day; but now I am glad,
+because we can talk about it once and for all. Charles"--she hesitated
+over the name--"dear, I have been thinking. Since we see this so
+clearly, it can be no treachery to my brothers to let our love stand
+where it does. At my age"--and Dorothea laughed nervously--"one is
+more easily contented than at yours."
+
+"I cannot bear your talking in this way."
+
+"Oh yes, you can," she assured him with a practical little nod. "I
+don't like it myself, but it has to be done. Now in the first place,
+when we meet like this there must be no kissing." She blushed, while
+her voice wavered again over the word; then, as again his hand closed
+upon hers, she laughed. "Well--yes, you may kiss my hand. But I must
+not have it on my conscience that I am hiding from Endymion and
+Narcissus what they have a right to know. Of course they would be angry
+if they knew that I--that I was fond of you at all; but they would
+have no right, for they could not have forbidden or prevented it. Now
+if our prospects were what folks would call happier, why then in
+earnest of them you might kiss me, but then you would be bound to go to
+my brothers and tell them. But since it can all come to nothing--"
+A ghost of a smile finished the sentence.
+
+"This war cannot last for ever."
+
+"It seems to have lasted ever since I can remember. But what difference
+could its ending make? Ah, yes, then I should lose you!" she cried in
+dismay, but added with as sudden remorse: "Forgive my selfishness!"
+
+"You are adorable," said he, and they laughed and picked up their
+pencils.
+
+Dorothea's casuistry might prove her ignorant of love and its perils,
+as a child is of fire; but having, as she deemed, discovered the limits
+of her duty and set up her terms with Raoul upon them, she soon
+developed a wonderful cunning in the art of being loved. Her plainness
+and the difference in their ages she took for granted, and subtly
+persuaded Raoul to take for granted; she had no affectations, no
+_minauderies_; by instinct she avoided setting up any illusion which he
+could not share; unconsciously and naturally she rested her strength on
+the maternal, protective side of love. Raoul came to her with his woes,
+his difficulties, his quarrel against fate; and she talked them over
+with him, and advised him almost as might a wise elder sister. She had
+read the _Confessions_; and, in spite of the missing pages, with less
+of fascination than disgust; yet had absorbed more than she knew. In
+Raoul she recognised certain points of likeness to his great
+countryman--points which had puzzled, her in the book. Now the book
+helped her to treat them, though she was unaware of its help. Still
+less aware was she of any likeness between her and Madame de Warens,
+of whom (again in spite of the missing pages) she had a poor opinion.
+
+The business of the drawings brought Raoul to Bayfield almost daily,
+and, as she had foreseen, they were much alone.
+
+After all, since it could end in nothing, the situation had its
+advantages; no one in the household gave it a thought, apparently.
+Dorothea was not altogether sure about Polly; once or twice she had
+caught Polly eying her with an odd expression--once especially, when
+she had looked up as the girl was plaiting her hair, and their eyes
+met in the glass. And once again Dorothea had sent her to the library
+with a note of instructions left that morning by Narcissus, and,
+following a few minutes later, had found her standing and talking with
+M. Raoul in an attitude which, without being familiar, was not quite
+respectful.
+
+"What was she saying?" her mistress asked, a moment or two later.
+
+"Oh, nothing," he answered negligently. "I suppose that class of
+person cannot be troubled to show respect to prisoners."
+
+That evening Dorothea rated the girl soundly for her pertness. "And I
+shall speak to Zeally," she threatened, "if anything of the kind
+happens again. If Mr. Endymion is to let you two have a house when you
+marry, and take in the Frenchmen as lodgers, he will want to know that
+you treat them respectfully."
+
+Polly wept, and was forgiven.
+
+April, May, June, went by, and still Dorothea lived in her dream,
+troubled only by dread of the day which must bring her lover's task to
+an end, and, with it, his almost daily visits. Bit by bit she learned
+his story. He told her of Arles, his birthplace, with its Roman masonry
+and amphitheatre; of a turreted terraced chateau and a family of
+aristocrats lording it among the vineyards; conspiring a little later
+with other noble families, entertaining them at secret meetings of the
+_Chiffonne_, where oaths were taken; later again, defending itself
+behind barricades of paving-stones; last of all, marched or carried in
+batches to the guillotine or the fusillade. He told of Avignon and its
+Papal Castle overhanging the Rhone, the city where he had spent his
+school days, and at the age of nine had seen Patriot L'Escuyer stabbed
+to death in the Cordeliers' Church with women's scissors; had seen
+Jourdan, the avenger, otherwise Coupe-tête, march flaming by at the
+head of his brave _brigands d'Avignon_. He told of the sequel, the
+hundred and thirty men, women and babes slaughtered in the dungeon of
+the _Glacière_; of Choisi's Dragoons and Grenadiers at the gates, and
+how, with roses scattered before them, they marched through the streets
+to the Castle, entered the gateway and paused, brought to a stand by
+the stench of putrefying flesh. He and his school mates had taken a
+holiday--their master being in hiding--to see the bodies lifted out.
+Also he had seen the search party ride out through the gates and return
+again, bringing Jourdan, with feet strapped beneath his horse's belly.
+He told of his journey to, Paris--his purpose to learn to paint (at
+such a time!); of the great David, fat and wheezy, back at his easel,
+panting from civil blood-shed; of the call to arms, his enlistment,
+his first campaign of 1805; of the foggy morning of Austerlitz, his
+wound, and he long hours he lay in the rear of a battery on the height
+of Pratzen, writhing, watching the artillerymen at work and so on,
+with stories of marching and fighting, nights slept out by him at full
+length on the sodden turf beside his arms.
+
+She had no history to tell him in exchange; she asked only to listen
+and to comfort. Yet so cleverly he addressed his story that the longest
+monologue became, by aid of a look or pressure of the hand, a
+conversation in which she, his guardian angel, bore her part. Did he
+talk of Avignon, for instance? It was the land of Laura and Petrarch,
+and she, seated with half-closed eyes beneath the Bayfield elms, saw
+the pair beside the waters of Vaucluse, saw the roses and orange-trees
+and arid plains of Provence, and wondered at the trouble in their
+spiritual love. She was not troubled; love as "a dureless content and
+a trustless joy" lay outside of her knowledge, and she had no desire
+to prove it. In this only she forgot the difference between Raoul's
+age and hers.
+
+The day came when his work was ended. They spent a great part of that
+afternoon in the garden, now in the height of its midsummer glory.
+Raoul was very silent.
+
+"But this must not end. It cannot end so!" he groaned once or twice.
+
+He never forgot for long his old spite against Time.
+
+"It will never end for me," she murmured.
+
+"Of what are you made, then, that you look forward to living on
+shadows?--one would say, almost cheerfully! I believe you could be
+happy if you never saw me again!"
+
+"Even if that had to be," she answered gravely, "while I knew you
+loved me I should never be quite unhappy. But you must find a way,
+while you can, to come sometimes; yes, you must come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES
+
+
+Dorothea sat in the great hall of Bayfield, between the lamplight and
+the moonlight, listening to the drip of the fountain beneath its tiny
+cupola. A midsummer moon-ray fell through the uncurtained lantern
+beneath the dome and spread in a small pool of silver at her feet.
+Beneath one of the two shaded lamps Endymion lounged in his armchair
+and read the Sherborne Mercury. Narcissus had carried off the other to
+a table across the hall by the long bookcase, and above the pot-plants
+banked about the fountain she saw it shining on his shapely grey head
+as he bent over a copy of the Antonine Itinerary and patiently worked
+out a new theory of its distances. Her own face rested in deep shadow,
+and she felt grateful for it as she leaned back thinking her own
+thoughts. It was a whole week now since Charles had visited Bayfield,
+but she had encountered him that morning in Axcester High Street as
+she passed up it on horseback with her brothers. Narcissus had reined
+up to put some question or other about the drawings, but Endymion (who
+did not share his brother's liking for M. Raoul) had ridden on, and
+she had ridden on too, though reluctantly. She recalled his salute,
+his glance at her, and down-dropped eyes; she wondered what point
+Narcissus and he had discussed, and blamed herself for not having
+found courage to ask. . . .
+
+The stable clock struck ten. She arose and kissed her brothers good-
+night. By Narcissus she paused.
+
+"Be careful of your eyes, dear. And if you are going to be busy with
+that great book these next few evenings I will have the table brought
+across to the other side where you will be cosier."
+
+Narcissus came out of his calculations and looked up at her gently.
+"Please do not disarrange the furniture for me; a change always fidgets
+me, even before I take in precisely what has happened." He smiled.
+"In that I resemble my old friend Vespasian, who would have no
+alterations made when he visited his home--_manente villa qualis
+fuerat olim, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret_.
+A pleasant trait, I have always thought."
+
+He lit her candle and kissed her, and Dorothea went up the broad
+staircase to her own room. Half-way along the corridor she stayed a
+moment to look down upon the hall. Endymion had dropped his newspaper
+and was yawning; a sure sign that Narcissus, already reabsorbed in the
+Itinerary, would in a few moments be hurried from it to bed.
+
+She reached the door of her room and opened it, then checked an
+exclamation of annoyance. For some mysterious reason Polly had
+forgotten to light her candle. This was her rule, never broken before.
+
+She stepped to the bellpull. Her hand was on it, when she heard the
+girl's voice muttering in the next room--the boudoir. At least, it
+sounded like Polly's voice, though its tone was strangely subdued and
+level. "Talking to herself," Dorothea decided, and smiled, in spite of
+her annoyance, as everyone smiles who catches another in this trick.
+She dropped the bellpull and opened the boudoir door.
+
+Polly was not talking to herself. She was leaning far out of the open
+window, and at the sound of the door started back into the room with a
+gasp and a short cry.
+
+"To whom were you talking?"
+
+Dorothea had set the candle down in the bedroom. Outside the window
+the park lay spread to the soft moonshine, but the moon did not look
+directly into the boudoir. In the half-light mistress and maid sought
+each other's eyes.
+
+"To whom were you talking?" Dorothea demanded, sternly.
+
+Polly was silent for a second or two, then her chin went up defiantly.
+
+"To Mr. Raoul," she muttered.
+
+"To M. Raoul!--to M. Raoul? I don't understand. Is M. Raoul--Oh, for
+goodness sake speak, girl! What is that? I see a piece of paper in
+your hand."
+
+Polly twisted it in her fingers, and made a movement to hide it in her
+pocket; but with the movement she seemed to reflect.
+
+"He gave it to me; I don't understand anything about it. I was
+shutting the window, when he whistled to me; he gave me this. I--I
+think he meant it for you."
+
+Polly's tone suddenly became saucy, but her voice shook.
+
+Dorothea was shaking too, as her fingers closed on the note. She
+vainly sought to read the girl's eyes. Her own cheeks were burning;
+she felt the blood rushing into them and singing in her ears. Yet in
+her abasement she kept her dignity, and, motioning Polly to follow,
+stepped into the bedroom, unfolded the letter slowly, and read it by
+the candle there.
+
+   _"My Angel,
+
+   "I have hungered now for a week. Be at your window this evening
+   and let me, at least, be fed with a word. See what I risk for you.
+
+   "Yours devotedly and for ever."_
+
+There was no signature, but well enough Dorothea knew the handwriting.
+A wave of anger swelled in her heart--the first she had ever felt
+towards him. He had behaved selfishly. "See what I risk for you!"--
+but to what risk was he exposing her! He was breaking their covenant
+too; demanding that which he must know her conscience abhorred. She
+had not believed he could understand her so poorly, held her so cheap.
+Cheap indeed, since he had risked her secret in Polly's hand!
+
+She turned the paper over, noting its creases. Suddenly--"You have
+opened and read this!" she said.
+
+Polly admitted it with downcast eyes. The girl, after the first
+surprise, had demeaned herself admirably, and now stood in the attitude
+proper to a confidential servant; solicitous, respectful, prepared to
+blink the peccadillo, even to sympathise discreetly at a hint given.
+
+"I'm sorry, Miss, that I opened it; I ought to have told you, but you
+took me by surprise. You know, Miss, that you gave me leave to run down
+to my aunt's this evening; and on my way back--just as I was letting
+myself in by the nursery gate, Mr. Raoul comes tearing up the hill
+after me and slips this into my hand. To tell you the truth, it rather
+frightened me being run after like that. And he said something and ran
+back--for nine was just striking, and in a moment the Ting-tang would
+be ringing and he must be back to answer his name. So in my fluster I
+didn't catch what he meant. When I got home and opened it, I saw my
+mistake. But you were downstairs at dinner--I couldn't get to speak
+with you alone--I waited to tell you; and just now, when I was
+drawing the blinds, I heard a whistle--"
+
+"M. Raoul had no right to send me such a message, Polly. I cannot
+think what he means by it. Nothing that I have ever said to him--"
+
+"No, Miss," Polly assented readily. After a pause she added: "I suppose
+you'd like me to go now? You won't be wanting your hair done to-night?"
+
+"Certainly I wish you to stay. Is he--is M. Raoul outside?"
+
+"I think so, Miss. Oh, yes--for certain he is."
+
+"Then I must insist on your staying with me while I dismiss him."
+
+"Very good, Miss. Would you wish me to stay here, or to come with you?"
+
+Dorothea felt herself blushing, and her temper rose again. "For the
+moment, stay here. I will leave the door open and call you when you
+are wanted."
+
+She passed into the boudoir and bent to the open window. At this corner
+the foundations of the house stood some feet lower than the slope out
+of which they had been levelled, and she looked down upon a glacis of
+smooth turf, capped by a glimmering parapet of Bath stone. Beyond
+stretched the moonlit park.
+
+"M. Raoul!" she called, but scarcely above a whisper.
+
+A figure crept out from the dark angle below and climbed to the parapet.
+
+"Dorothea! Forgive me! Another night and no word with you--I could not
+bear it."
+
+"You are mad. You are breaking your parole and risking shame for me.
+Nay, you have shamed me already. Polly is here."
+
+"Polly is a good girl; she understands. A word, then, if you must drive
+me away."
+
+"Your _parole!_"
+
+"I can pass the sentries. No fear of the patrol hereabouts. Your hand--
+let down your hand to me. I can reach it from the parapet here--with
+my fingers only, not with my lips, though even that you never forbade!"
+
+Weakly, she lowered her arm over the sill. He reached to touch it, and
+she leaned her face towards his--hers in shadow, his pale in the
+moonlight.
+
+Before their fingers met, a yellow flame leapt from the angle to the
+left; a loud report banged in her ears and echoed across the park; and
+Raoul, after swaying a second, pitched forward with a sharp cry and
+rolled to the foot of the glacis.
+
+Dorothea forced herself back in the room, and stood there upright and
+shook, with Polly beside her holding her two hands.
+
+"They have shot him!"
+
+The two women listened for a moment. All was still now. Polly stepped
+to the window and, closed it softly.
+
+"But why? What are you doing?" Dorothea asked, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"They will find quite enough without that," said the practical girl,
+but her voice quavered.
+
+"Yet if they had seen--Ah, how selfish to think of that now! Hush--
+that was a groan! He is alive still."
+
+She moved towards the window, but Polly dragged her back by main force.
+
+"Listen, Miss!"
+
+Below they heard the sudden unbarring of doors, and Endymion's voice
+calling for Mudge, the butler. A bell pealed in the servants' hall,
+stopped, and began ringing again in short and violent jerks.
+
+"Let me go," commanded Dorothea. "They will never find him, under the
+slope there. He may be bleeding to death. I must tell--"
+
+But Polly clung to her. "They'll find him safe enough, Miss Dorothea.
+There's Sam, now--hark!--at the backdoor bell: he'll tell them."
+
+"Sam!"
+
+"Sam Zeally, Miss."
+
+"But I don't understand," Dorothea stammered; with a sharp suspicion
+of treachery, she pushed the girl from her. "Was Zeally mounting guard
+tonight? If I thought--don't tell me it was a trap! Oh, you wicked
+girl!"
+
+"No; it wasn't," answered Polly, sulkily. "I don't know nothing of
+Sam's movements. But he might be hanging about the house; and if he
+saw a man talking to me, he's just as jealous as fire."
+
+She broke off at the sound of voices below the window. The ray of a
+lantern, as the search-party jolted it, flashed and danced on wall and
+ceiling of the dim boudoir. A sharp exclamation announced that Raoul
+was discovered. A confused muttering followed; and then Dorothea heard
+Endymion's voice calling up to Mudge from the bottom of the trench.
+
+"Run to Miss Westcote's room and tell her we shall require lint and
+bandages. There is no cause for alarm, assure her; say there has been
+an accident--a Frenchman overtaken out of bounds and wounded--I
+think, not seriously. If she be gone to bed, get the medicine chest
+and the key and bring them into the kitchen."
+
+Dorothea had charge of the Bayfield medicine chest, and kept it in a
+cupboard of the boudoir. She groped for it, pulled open drawer after
+drawer, rifled them for lint and linen, and by the time Mudge tapped
+on the door, stood ready with the chest under one arm and a heap of
+bandages in the other.
+
+"In the kitchen, Mr. Endymion said. I am coming at once; take the
+chest, run, and have as many candles lit as possible."
+
+Mudge ran; Dorothea followed--with Polly behind her, trembling like
+a leaf.
+
+The two women reached the kitchen as the party entered with Raoul,
+and supported him to a chair beside the dying fire. His face was
+colourless, and he lay back and closed his eyes weakly as Endymion
+stooped to examine the wounded leg, with Narcissus in close attendance,
+and the others standing respectfully apart--Mudge, the two footmen
+(in their shirt sleeves), an under-gardener named Best, one of the
+housemaids, and Corporal Zeally by the door in regimentals, with his
+japanned shako askew and his Brown Bess still in his hand. Behind his
+shoulder, three or four of the women servants hung about the doorway
+and peered in, between curiosity and terror.
+
+It was a part of Endymion's fastidiousness that the sight of blood--
+that is, of human blood--turned his stomach. In her distress Dorothea
+could not help admiring how he conquered this aversion; how he knelt
+in his spick-and-span evening dress, and, after turning back his
+ruffles, unlaced the prisoner's soaked shoe and rolled down the
+stocking.
+
+He looked up gratefully as she entered. In such emergencies Narcissus
+was worse than useless; but Dorothea had the nursing instinct, and her
+brothers recognised it. The sight of a wound or a hurt steadied her
+wits, and she became practical and helpful at once.
+
+"A flesh wound only, I think; just above the ankle--the tendon cut,
+but the bone apparently not broken."
+
+"It may be splintered, though," said Dorothea. "Has anyone thought of
+sending for Doctor Ibbetson? He must be fetched at once. A towel,
+please--three or four--from the dresser there." A footman brought
+the towels. She knelt, folded two on her lap, and, resting Raoul's foot
+there, drew the stocking gently from the wound. "A basin and warm
+water, not too hot. Polly, you will find a small sponge in the, second
+drawer . . ." She nodded towards the medicine chest. "One of you, make
+up a better fire and set on a fresh kettle . . ."
+
+She gave her orders in a low firm voice, and continued to direct
+everyone thus, while she sponged the wound and drew off the stocking.
+Neither towards them nor towards Raoul did she lift her eyes. The bare
+foot of her beloved rested in her lap. She heard him groan twice, but
+with no pain inflicted by her fingers; if their slightest pressure had
+hurt him she would have known. She went on bathing the wound--she,
+who could have bathed it with her tears. As time passed, and still the
+doctor did not come, she began to bandage it. She called on Polly for
+the bandages; then, still without looking up, she divined that Polly
+was useless--was engaged in trying to catch Zeally's eye, and warn
+him or get a word with him.
+
+"He's pale as a ghost yet," said Endymion. "Another dose of brandy
+might set him up. I gave him some from my flask before bringing him in."
+
+"He is not going to faint," she answered.
+
+"Well, I won't bother him with questions until he comes round a bit.
+You, Zeally, had better step into my room though, and give me your
+version of the affair."
+
+But as the Corporal saluted and took a step forward, the prisoner
+opened his eyes.
+
+"Before you examine Zeally, sir, let me save you what trouble I can."
+He spoke faintly, but with deliberation. "I wish to deny nothing. I was
+escaping, and he tracked me. He came on me as I cut across the park,
+and challenged. I did not answer, but ran around a corner of the house
+and jumped the parapet, thinking to double along the trench there and
+put him off the scent--at least to dodge the bullet, if he fired. But
+as I jumped for it, he winged me. A very pretty shot, too. With your
+leave, sir, I 'd like to shake hands with him on it. Shake hands,
+Corporal!" Raoul stretched out a hand, sideways. "You're a smart
+fellow, and no malice between soldiers."
+
+Dorothea heard Polly's gasp: it seemed to her that all the room must
+hear it. Her own hand trembled on the bandage. She had forgotten her
+danger--the all but inevitable scandal--until Raoul brought it back
+to her, and in the same breath saved her by his heroic lie. She could
+not profit by it, though. Her lips parted to refute it, and for the
+first time she gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with sudden love,
+gratitude, pride, even while they entreated against the sacrifice. He
+was smiling down with an air of faint amusement; yet beneath the lashes
+she read a command which mastered her will, imposed silence. He had
+taken on a new manliness, and for the first time in the story of their
+loves she felt herself dominated by something stronger than passion. He
+had swept her off her feet, before now, by boyish ardour: her humility,
+the marvel of being loved, had aided him; but hitherto in her heart she
+had always felt her own character to be the stronger. Now he challenged
+her on woman's own ground--that of self-abnegation; he commanded her
+to his own hurt, he towered above her. She had never dreamed of a love
+like this. Beaten, despairing for him, yet proud as she had never been
+in her life, she held her breath.
+
+Corporal Zeally was merely bewildered. His was a deliberate mind and
+had hatched out the night's catastrophe after incubating it for weeks.
+Unconvinced by Polly's explanation of her meeting with M. Raoul at the
+Nursery gate, he had nursed a dull jealousy and set himself to watch,
+and had dogged his man down at length with the slow cunning of a yokel
+bred of a line of poachers. Raoul's tribute to his smartness perplexed
+him and almost he scented a trap.
+
+"Beg your pardon, Squire," he began heavily, forgetting military forms
+of address, "but the gentleman don't put it right."
+
+"Oh, hang your British modesty!" put in Raoul with a wry laugh. "If it
+pleases you to represent that the whole thing was accidental and you
+don't deserve to be promoted sergeant for tonight's work, at least you
+might respect my vanity."
+
+Polly saw her opportunity. She crossed boldly and made as if to lay
+over the Corporal's mouth the hand that would fain have boxed his ears.
+"Reckon this is my affair," she announced, with an effrontery at which
+one of the footmen guffawed openly. "Be modest as you please, my lad,
+when I've married 'ee; but I won't put up with modesty from anyone
+under a sergeant, and that I warn 'ee!"
+
+The Corporal eyed his sweetheart without forgiveness. His mouth was
+open, but upon the word "sergeant," he shut it again and began to
+digest the idea.
+
+"You know, of course, sir," Endymion Westcote addressed the prisoner
+coldly, "to what such a confession commits you? I do not see what other
+construction the facts admit, but it is so serious in itself and in its
+consequences that I warn you--"
+
+"I have broken my _parole_, sir," said Raoul, simply. "Of the
+temptations you cannot judge. Of the shame I am as profoundly sensible
+as you can be. The consequences I am ready to suffer."
+
+He sank back in his chair as Dr. Ibbetson entered.
+
+
+An hour later Dorothea said goodnight to her brother in the great hall.
+He had lit his candle and was mixing himself a glass of brandy and
+water.
+
+"The sight of blood--" he excused himself. "I am sorry for the fellow,
+though I never liked him. I suppose, now, there was nothing between him
+and that girl Polly? For a moment--from Zeally's manner--" He gulped
+down the drink. "His confession was honest enough, anyhow. Poor fool!
+he's safe in hospital for a week, and his friends, if he has any, and
+they know what it means, will pray for that week to be prolonged."
+
+"What does it mean?" Dorothea managed to ask.
+
+"It means Dartmoor."
+
+Dorothea's candlestick shook in her hand, and the extinguisher fell on
+the floor. Her brother picked it up and restored it.
+
+"Naturally," he murmured with brotherly concern, "your nerves! It has
+been a trying night, but you comported yourself admirably, Dorothea.
+Ibbetson assures me he could not have tied the bandage better himself.
+I felt proud of my sister." He kissed her gallantly and pulled out his
+watch. "Past twelve o'clock!--time they were round with the barouche.
+The sooner we get Master Raoul down to the Infirmary and pack him in
+bed, the better."
+
+As Dorothea went up the stairs she heard the sound of wheels on the
+gravel.
+
+She could not accept his sacrifice. No; a way must be found to save
+him, and in her prayers that night she began to seek it. But while
+she prayed, her heart was bowed over a great joy. She had a hero for
+a lover!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DOROTHEA CONFESSES
+
+
+She saw no more of him, and heard very little, before the Court Martial
+met. No one acquainted with the code of that age--so strait-laced in
+its proprieties, so full-blooded in its vices--will need to be told
+that she never dreamed of asking her brother's permission to visit the
+Prisoners' Infirmary. He reported--once a day, perhaps, and casually--
+that the patient was doing well. Dorothea ventured once to sound
+General Rochambeau, but the old aristocrat answered stiffly that he
+took no interest in _déclassés_, and plainly hinted that, in his
+judgment, M. Raoul had sinned past pardon; which but added to her
+remorse. From time to time she obtained some hearsay news through
+Polly; but Polly's chief interest now lay in her approaching marriage.
+
+For the Commissary, while accepting Raoul's version of his capture, had
+an intuitive gift which saved him from wholly believing in it. Indeed,
+his conduct of the affair, if we consider the extent of his knowledge,
+was nothing less than masterly. Corporal Zeally found himself a
+sergeant within forty-eight hours, and within an hour of the
+announcement he and Polly were given an audience in the Bayfield
+library, with the result that Parson Milliton cried their banns in
+Axcester Church on the following Sunday, and the bride-elect received
+a month's wages and three weeks' notice of dismissal, with a hint that
+the reason for her short retention--to instruct her successor in Miss
+Dorothea's ways--was ostensible rather than real. With Raoul's fate he
+declined to meddle. "Here," he said in effect, "is my report, including
+the prisoner's confession. I do my simple duty in presenting it. But
+the young man was captured in my grounds; he was known to be a _protégé_
+of my brother's. Finding him wounded and faint with loss of blood, we
+naturally did our best for him, and this again renders me perhaps too
+sympathetic. The law is the law, however, and must take its course."
+No attitude could have been more proper or have shown better feeling.
+
+So Raoul, who made a rapid recovery--barring the limp which he carried
+to the end of his days--was tried, condemned, and sentenced in the
+space of two hours. He stuck to his story, and the court had no
+alternative. Dartmoor or Stapleton inevitably awaited the prisoner who
+broke parole and was retaken. The night after his sentence Raoul was
+marched past the Bayfield gates under escort for Dartmoor. And Dorothea
+had not intervened.
+
+This, of course, proves that she was of no heroical fibre. She knew it.
+Night after night she had lain awake, vainly contriving plans for his
+deliverance; and either she lacked inventiveness or was too honest, for
+no method could she discover which avoided confession of the simple
+truth. As the days passed without catastrophe and without news save
+that her lover was bettering in hospital, she staved off the truth,
+trusting that the next night would bring inspiration. Almost she
+hoped--being quite unwise in such matters--that his sufferings would
+be accepted as cancelling his offence. So she played the coward. The
+blow fell on the evening when Endymion announced, in casual tones,
+that the Court Martial was fixed for the day after next.
+
+That night, indeed, brought something like an inspiration; and on the
+morrow she rode into Axcester and called upon Polly, now a bride of
+six days' standing and domiciled in one of the Westcote cottages in
+Church Street, a little beyond the bridge. For a call of state this
+was somewhat premature, but it might pass.
+
+Polly appeared to think it premature. Her furniture was topsy-turvy,
+and her hair in curl-papers; she obviously did not expect visitors,
+and resented this curtailment of the honeymoon. She showed it even
+when Dorothea, after apologies, came straight to the point:
+
+"Polly, I am very unhappy."
+
+"Indeed, Miss?"
+
+"You know that I must be, since M. Raoul is going to that horrible
+war-prison rather than let the truth be known."
+
+"But since you didn't encourage him, Miss--"
+
+"Of course I didn't encourage him to come," said Dorothea, quickly.
+
+"Why then it was his own fault, and he broke his word by breaking
+bounds."
+
+"Yes, strictly his parole was broken; but the meaning of parole is,
+that a prisoner promises to make no attempt to escape. M. Raoul never
+dreamed of escaping, yet that is the ground of his punishment."
+
+"Well," said Polly, "if he chooses to say he was escaping, I don't see
+how we--I mean, how you--can help."
+
+"Why, by telling the truth; and that's what we ought to do, though it
+was wrong of him to expose us to it."
+
+"To be sure it was," Polly assented.
+
+"But," urged Dorothea, "couldn't we tell the truth of what happened
+without anyone's wanting to know more? He gave you a note, which you
+took without guessing what it contained. He wished to have speech with
+me. Before you could give me the note and I could refuse to see him--
+as I should certainly have done--he had arrived. His folly deserves
+punishment, but no such punishment as being sent to Dartmoor."
+
+Polly eyed her ex-mistress shrewdly.
+
+"Have you burnt the note?" she asked.
+
+Dorothea, blushing to the roots of her hair, stammered:
+
+"No; I kept it--it was evidence for him, you see. I wish, now--"
+
+She broke off as Polly nodded her head.
+
+"I guessed you'd have kept it. And now you'll never make up your mind
+to burn it. You're too honest."
+
+"But, surely the note itself would not be called for?"
+
+"I don't know. Folks ask curious questions in courts of law, I've
+always heard. Beggin' your pardon, Miss, but your face tells too many
+tales, and anyone but a fool would ask for that note before he'd been
+dealing with you three minutes. If he didn't, he'd ask you what was in
+it. And then you'd be forced to tell lies--which you couldn't, to
+save your soul!"
+
+Dorothea knew this to be true. She reflected a moment. "I should
+decline to show it, or to answer."
+
+Mrs. Zeally thought it about time to assert herself. "Very good, Miss.
+And now, how about me? They'd ask me questions, too; and I'd have you
+consider, Miss Dorothea, that though not shaken down to it yet--not,
+as you might say, in a state to expect callers or make them properly
+welcome--I'm a respectable married woman. I don't mind confessing to
+you, Zeally isn't a comfortable man. He's pleased enough to be
+sergeant, though he don't quite know how it came about; and he's that
+sullen with brooding over it, that for sixpence he'd give me the strap
+to ease his feelings. I ain't complaining. Mr. Endymion chose to take
+me on the hop and hurry up the banns, and I'm going to accommodate
+myself to the man. He's three-parts of a fool, and you needn't fear
+but I'll manage him. But I ain't for taking no risks, and that I tell
+you fair."
+
+Dorothea was stunned. "You don't mean to say that Zeally suspects you?"
+
+"Why, of course he does!" said Polly. Prudence urged her to repeat
+that Zeally was three-parts of a fool; but, being nettled, she spoke
+the words uppermost: "Who d'ee think he'd suspect?"
+
+Dorothea, however, was too desperately dejected to feel the prick of
+this shaft. "You will not help me, then?" was all her reply to it.
+
+"Why, no, Miss! if you put it in that point-blank way. A married
+woman's got to think of her reputation first of all."
+
+Polly's attitude might be selfish, unfeeling; but the fundamental
+incapacity for gratitude in girls of Polly's class will probably
+surprise and pain their mistresses until the end of the world. After
+all, Polly was right. An attempt to clear Raoul by telling the
+superficial truth must involve terrible risks, and might at any turn
+enforce a choice between full confession and falsehood.
+
+Dorothea could not bring herself to lie, even heroically; and there
+would be no heroism in lying to save herself. On the other hand, the
+thought of a forced confession--it might he before a tribunal--was
+too hideous. No, the suggestion had been a mad one, and Polly had
+rightly thrown cold water on it. Also, it had demanded too much of
+Polly, who could not be expected to jeopardise her matrimonial
+prospects to right a wrong for which she was not in truth responsible.
+
+Dorothea loved a hero, but knew she was no heroine. She called herself
+a pitiful coward--unjustly, because, nurtured as she had been on the
+proprieties, surrounded all her days by men and women of a class most
+sensitive to public opinion, who feared the breath of scandal worse
+than a plague, confession for her must mean a shame unspeakable. What!
+Admit that she, Dorothea Westcote, had loved a French prisoner almost
+young enough to be her son! that she had given him audience at night!
+that he had been shot and captured beneath her window!
+
+Unjustly, too, she accused herself, because it is the decision, not
+the terror felt in deciding, which distinguishes the brave from the
+cowardly. If you doubt the event with Dorothea, the fault, must be
+mine. She was timid, but she came of a race which will endure anything
+rather than the conscious anguish of doing wrong.
+
+Nor, had her conscience needed them, did it lack reminders. Narcissus
+had been persuaded to send the drawings to London to be treated by
+lithography, a process of which he knew nothing, but to which M. Raoul,
+during his studies in Paris, had given much attention, and apparently
+not without making some discoveries--unimportant perhaps, and such as
+might easily reward an experimenter in an art not well past its
+infancy. At any rate, he had drawn up elaborate instructions for the
+London firm of printers, and when the proofs arrived with about a third
+of these instructions neglected and another third misunderstood,
+Narcissus was at his wits' end, aghast at the poorness of the
+impressions, yet not knowing in the least how to correct them.
+
+He gave Dorothea no peace with them. Evening after evening she was
+invited to pore upon the drawings over which she and her lover had bent
+together; to criticise here and offer a suggestion there; while every
+line revived a memory, inflicted a pang. What suggestion could she find
+save the one which must not be spoken?--to send, fetch the artist back
+from Dartmoor, and remedy all this, with so much beside!
+
+"But," urged Narcissus, "you and he spent hours together. I quite
+understood that he had explained the process to you, and on the
+strength of this I gave it too little attention. Of course, if one
+could have foreseen--" He broke off, and added with some testiness:
+"I'd give fifty pounds to have the fellow back, if only for ten
+minutes' talk."
+
+"But why couldn't we?" Dorothea asked suddenly, breathlessly.
+
+They were alone by the table under the bookcase. On the far side of
+the hall, before the fire, Endymion dozed after a long day with the
+partridges. Narcissus's words awoke a wild hope.
+
+"But why couldn't we?" she repeated, her voice scarcely louder than a
+whisper.
+
+"Well, that's an idea!" he chuckled. "Confound the fellow, he imposed
+on all of us! If we had only guessed what he intended, we might have
+signed a petition telling him how necessary he had made himself, and
+imploring him, for our sakes, to behave like a gentleman."
+
+"But supposing--supposing he was innocent--that he had never meant--"
+She put out a hand to lay it on her brother's. "Hush!" she could have
+cried; but it was too late.
+
+"Endymion!" Narcissus called across the room, jocosely.
+
+"Eh! What is it?" Endymion came out of his doze.
+
+"We're in a mess with these drawings, a complete mess; and we want
+Master Raoul fetched out of Dartmoor to set us right. Come now--as
+Commissary, what'll you take to work it for us? Fifty pounds has
+already been offered."
+
+Dorothea turned from the table with a sigh for her lost chance.
+
+"He'd like it," answered Endymion, grimly. "But, my dear fellow,"--
+he slewed himself in his chair for a look around the hall,--"pray
+moderate your tones. I particularly deprecate levity on such matters
+within possible hearing of the servants; that class of person never
+understands a joke."
+
+Narcissus rubbed the top of his head--a trick of his in perplexity.
+
+"But, seriously: it has only this moment occurred to me. Couldn't the
+drawings be conveyed to him, in due form, through the Commandant of the
+Prison? The poor fellow owes us no grudge. I believe he would be eager
+to do us this small service. And, really, they have made such a mess
+of the stones--"
+
+"Impossible! Out of the question! And I may say now, and once for all,
+that the mention of that unhappy youth is repugnant to me. By good
+fortune, we escaped being compromised by him; and I have refrained
+from reminding you that your patronage of him was, to say the least,
+indiscreet."
+
+"God bless me! You don't suggest, I hope, that I encouraged him to
+escape!"
+
+"I suggest nothing. But I am honestly glad to be quit of him, and take
+some satisfaction in remembering that I detested the fellow from the
+first. He had too much cleverness with his bad style, or, if you prefer
+it, was sufficiently like a gentleman to be dangerous. Pah! For his
+particular offence, I would have had the old hulks maintained in the
+Hamoaze, with all their severities; as it is, the posturer may find
+Dartmoor pretty stiff, but will yet have the consolation of herding
+with his betters."
+
+Strangely enough this speech did more to fix Dorothea's resolve than
+all she had read or heard of the rigours of the war-prison. Gently
+reared though she was, physical suffering seemed to her less
+intolerable than to be unjustly held in this extreme of scorn..
+This was the deeper wrong; and putting herself in her lover's place,
+feeling with his feelings, she knew it to be by far the deeper. In
+Dartmoor he shared the sufferings of men unfortunate but not
+despicable, punished for fighting in their country's cause. But here
+was a moral punishment, deserved by none but the vilest; and she had
+helped to bring it--was allowing it to rest--upon a hero!
+
+In the long watches of that night it never occurred to her that the
+brutality of her brother's contempt was over-done. And Endymion, not
+given to self-questioning at any time, was probably unconscious of a
+dull wrath revenging itself for many pin-pricks of Master Raoul's
+clever tongue. Endymion Westcote, like many pompous men, usually hurt
+somebody when he indulged in a joke, and for this cause, perhaps, had
+a nervous dislike of wit in others. Dull in taking a jest, but almost
+preternaturally clever in suspecting one, he had disliked Raoul's
+sallies in proportion as they puzzled him. The remembrance of them
+rankled, and this had been his bull-roar of revenge.
+
+He spent the next morning in his office; and returning at three in the
+afternoon, retired to the library to draw up the usual monthly report
+required of him as Commissary. He had been writing tor an hour or more,
+when Dorothea tapped at the door and entered.
+
+Endymion did not observe her pallor; indeed, he scarcely looked up.
+
+"Ah! You have come for a book? Make as little noise, then, as possible,
+that's a good soul. You interrupted me in a column of figures."
+
+He began to add them up afresh, tapping the table with the fingers of
+his left hand, as his custom was when counting. Dorothea waited. The
+addition made, he entered it, resting three shapely finger-tips on the
+table's edge for the number to be carried over.
+
+"I wish to speak with you particularly."
+
+He laid down his pen resignedly. Her voice was urgent, and he knew
+well enough that the occasion must be urgent when Dorothea interrupted
+his work.
+
+"Anything wrong?"
+
+"It--it's about M. Raoul."
+
+His eyebrows went up, but only to contract again upon a magisterial
+frown.
+
+"Really, after the request I was obliged to make to Narcissus last
+night--you were present, I believe? Is it possible that I failed to
+make plain my distaste?"
+
+"Ah, but listen! It is no question of distaste, but of a great wrong.
+He was not trying to escape; he told you an untruth, to--to save--"
+
+Endymion had picked up a paper-knife, and leaned back, tapping his
+teeth with it.
+
+"Do you know?" he said, "I suspected something of this kind from the
+first, though I had no idea you shared the knowledge. Zeally's
+cleverness struck me as a trifle too--ah--phenomenal for belief.
+I scented some low intrigue; and Polly's dismissal may indicate my
+pretty shrewd guess at the culprit."
+
+"But it was not Polly!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Endymion sat bolt upright.
+
+"You must not blame Polly. It was I whom M. Raoul came to see that
+night."
+
+He stared at her, incredulous.
+
+"My dear Dorothea, are you quite insane?"
+
+"He wished to see me--to speak with me; he gave the girl a note for
+me. I knew nothing about it until I went upstairs that night, and found
+her at the boudoir window. M. Raoul was outside. He had arrived before
+she could deliver the message."
+
+"Quite so!" with a nasally derisive laugh. "And you really need me to
+point out how prettily those turtles were befooling you?"
+
+"Indeed, no; it was not that."
+
+He struck the table impatiently with the paper-knife.
+
+"My dear woman, do exert some common sense! What in the name of wonder
+could the fellow have to discuss with you at that hour? Your pardon if,
+finding no apparent limits to your innocence, I assume it to be
+illimitable, and point out that he would scarcely break bounds and play
+Romeo beneath the window of a middle-aged lady for the purpose of
+discussing water-colours with her, or the exploits of Vespasian."
+
+The taunt brought red to Dorothea's cheeks, and stung her into courage.
+
+"He came to see me," she persisted. Her voice dropped a little. "I had
+come to feel a regard for M. Raoul; and he--" She could not go on. Her
+eyes met her brother's for a moment, then fell before them.
+
+What she expected she could not tell. Certainly she did not expect what
+happened, and his sudden laughter smote her like a whip. It broke in a
+shout of high, incontrollable mirth, and he leaned back and shook in
+his chair until the tears streamed down his cheeks.
+
+"You!" he gasped. "You! Oh, oh, oh!"
+
+She stood beneath the scourge, silent. She felt it curl across and bite
+the very flesh, and thought it was killing her, Her bosom heaved.
+
+It ceased. He sat upright again, wiping his eyes.
+
+"But it's incredible!" he protested; "the scoundrel has fooled you all
+along. Yes, of course," he pondered; "that explains the success of the
+trick, which otherwise was clumsy beyond belief; in fact, its
+clumsiness puzzled me. But how was I to guess?" He pulled himself up on
+the edge of another guffaw. "Look here, Dorothea, be sensible. It's
+clear as daylight the fellow was after Polly, and made you his cats-
+paw. Face it, my dear; face it, and conquer your illusions. I
+understand it must cost you some suffering, but, after all, you must
+find some blame in yourself--in your heart, I mean, not in your
+conduct. Doubtless your conduct showed weakness, or he would never have
+dared--but, there, I can trust my sister. Face it; the thing's absurd!
+You, a woman of thirty-eight (or is it thirty-nine?), and he, if I may
+judge from appearances, young enough to be your son! Polly was his
+game--the deceitful little slut! You must see it for yourself. And
+after all, it's more natural. Immoral, I've no doubt--"
+
+He paused in the middle of his harangue. A parliamentary candidate
+(unsuccessful) for Axcester had once dared to poke fun at Endymion
+Westcote for having asserted, in a public speech, that indecency was
+worse than immorality. For the life of him Endymion could never see
+where the joke came in; but the fellow had illustrated it with such a
+wealth of humorous instances, and had kept his ignorant audience for
+twenty minutes in such fits of laughter, that he never afterwards
+approached the antithesis but he skirted it with a red face.
+
+And Dorothea?
+
+The scourge might cut into her heart; it could not reach the image of
+Raoul she shielded there. She knew her lover too well, and that he was
+incapable of this baseness. But the injurious charge, diverted from
+him, fell upon her own defences, and, breaking them, let in the cruel
+light at length on her passion, her folly. This was how the world
+would see it. . . . Yes! Raoul was right--there is no enemy
+comparable with Time. Looks, fortune, birth, breed, unequal hearts and
+minds--all these Love may confound and play with; but Time which
+divides the dead from the living, sets easily between youth and age a
+gulf which not only forbids love but derides:
+
+   Age, I do abhor thee;
+   Youth, I do adore thee;
+   O, my Love, my Love is young!
+
+She could give counsel, sympathy, care; could delight in his delights,
+hope in his hopes, melt with his woes, and, having wept a little, find
+comfort for them. She could thrill at his footsteps, blush at his
+salutation, sit happily beside him and talk or be silent, reading his
+moods. He might fill her waking day, haunt her dreams, in the end pass
+into prison for her sake, having crowned love with martyrdom. And the
+world would laugh as Endymion had laughed! Her hands went up to shut
+out the roar of it. A coarse amour with Polly--that could be
+understood. Polly was young. Polly . . .
+
+"What will you do?" she heard herself asking, and could scarcely
+believe the voice belonged to her.
+
+"Do? Why, if my theory be right--and I hope I've convinced you--I see
+no use in meddling. The girl is respectably married. It will cause her
+quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again. Her husband
+will have just ground for complaint, and it might--I need not point
+out--be a little awkward, eh?"
+
+For the first time in her life Dorothea regarded her brother with
+something like contempt. But the flash gave way to a look of weary
+resolve.
+
+"Then I must tell the truth--to others," she said.
+
+It confounded him for a moment. But although here was a new Dorothea,
+belying all experience, his instinct for handling men and women told
+him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even
+clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be
+a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to
+redden at his blunder.
+
+"You do not agree with my view?" he asked, tapping the table slowly.
+
+"I disbelieve it. I have no right to believe it, even if I had the
+power. He is in prison. You must help me to set him free. If not--"
+
+"He cannot, possibly return to Axcester."
+
+"Oh, what is that to me?" she cried with sudden impatience. Then her
+tone fell back to its dull level. "I have not been pleading for myself."
+
+"No, no: I understand." His brow cleared, as a man's who faces a bad
+business and resolves to go through with it. "Well, there is only one
+way to spare you and everyone. We must get him a cartel."
+
+"A cartel?"
+
+"Yes--get him exchanged, and sent home to his friends. The War Office
+owes me something, and will no doubt oblige me in a small affair like
+this without asking questions. Oh, certainly it can be managed. I will
+write at once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DARTMOOR
+
+
+Dorothea had the profoundest faith in her brother's ability. That he
+hit at once on this simple solution which had eluded her through many
+wakeful nights did not surprise her in the least. Nor did she doubt
+for a moment that he would manage it as he promised.
+
+But she could not thank him. He had beaten her spirit sorely--so
+sorely, that for days her whole body ached with the bruise. She did not
+accuse him: her one flash of contempt had lasted for an instant only,
+and the old habit of reverence quickly effaced it. But he had exposed
+her weakness; had forced her to see it, naked and pitiful, with no
+chivalry--either manly or brotherly--covering it; and seeing it with
+nothing to depend upon, she learned for the first time in her life the
+high, stern lesson of independence.
+
+She learned it unconsciously, but she never forgot it. And it is to
+Endymion's credit that he recognised the great alteration and allowed
+for it. He had driven her too far. She would never again be the same
+Dorothea. And never again by word or look did he remind her of that
+hour of abasement.
+
+An exchange of prisoners was not to be managed in a day, and would take
+weeks, perhaps six weeks or a couple of months. He discussed this with
+her, quietly, as a matter of business entrusted to him, explained what
+steps he had taken, what letters he had written; when he expected
+definite news from the War Office. She met him on the same ground.
+"Yes, he could not have done better." She trusted him absolutely.
+
+And in fact he had been better than his word. Ultimate success, to be
+sure, was certain. It were strange if Mr. Westcote, who had opened his
+purse to support a troop of Yeomanry, who held two parliamentary seats
+at the Government's service and two members at call to bully the War
+Office whenever he desired, who might at any time have had a baronetcy
+for the asking--it were strange indeed if Mr. Westcote could not
+obtain so trivial a favour as the exchange of a prisoner. He could do
+this, but he could not appreciably hurry the correspondence by which
+Pall Mall bargained a Frenchman in the forest of Dartmoor against an
+Englishman in the fortress of Briançon in the Hautes Alpes. Foreseeing
+delays, he had written privately to the Commandant at Dartmoor--a
+Major Sotheby, with whom he had some slight acquaintance--advising him
+of his efforts and requesting him to show the prisoner meanwhile all
+possible indulgence. The letter contained a draft, for ten pounds, to
+be spent upon small comforts at the Commandant's discretion; but
+M. Raoul was not to be informed of the donor, or of his approaching
+liberty.
+
+In theory--such was the routine--Raoul remained one of the Axcester
+contingent of prisoners, and all reports concerning him must pass
+through the Commissary's hands. In the last week of October, when
+brother and sister daily expected the cartel, arrived a report that
+the prisoner was in hospital with a sharp attack of pleurisy. Major
+Sotheby added a private note:-
+
+_"I feared yesterday that the exchange would come too late for him;
+but to-day the Medical Officer, who has just left me, speaks hopefully.
+I have no doubt, however, that a winter in this climate would be fatal.
+The fellow's lungs are breaking down, and even if they could stand the
+fogs, the cold must finish him."_
+
+Dorothea stood by a window in the library when Endymion read this out
+to her; the very window through which she had been gazing that spring
+morning when Raoul first kissed her. To-day the first of the winter's
+snow fell gently, persistently, out of a leaden and windless sky.
+
+She turned. "I must go to him," she said.
+
+"But to what purpose--"
+
+"Oh, you may trust me!"
+
+"My dear girl, that was not in my mind." He spoke gently. "But until
+the warrant arrives--"
+
+"We will give it until to-morrow; by every account it should reach us
+to-morrow. You shall take it with me. I must see him once more; only
+once--in your presence, if you wish."
+
+Next morning they rode into the town together, an hour before the
+mail's arrival. Endymion alighted at the Town House to write a business
+letter or two before strolling down to the post office. Dorothea
+cantered on to the top of the hill, and then walked Mercury to and fro,
+while she watched the taller rise beyond. The snow had ceased falling;
+but a crisp north wind skimmed the drifts and powdered her dark habit.
+
+Twice she pulled out her watch; but the coach was up to time in spite
+of the heavy roads; and as it topped the rise she reined Mercury to the
+right-about and cantered back to await it. Already the street had begun
+to fill as usual; and, as usual, there was General Rochambeau picking
+his way along the pavement to present himself for the Admiral's
+letter--the letter which never arrived.
+
+Would _her_ letter never arrive?
+
+He halted on the kerb by her stirrup. She asked after the Admiral's
+health.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, if ever he leaves his bed again, it will be a
+miracle."
+
+She was not listening. Age, age again!--it makes all the difference.
+Here came the coach--did it hold a letter for Raoul? Raoul was young.
+
+The coach rolled by with less noise than usual, on the carpet of snow
+churned brown with traffic. As it passed, the guard lifted his horn and
+blew cheerily. She followed, telling herself it was a good omen. During
+the long wait outside the post office she rebuked herself more than
+once for building a hope upon it. Name after name was called, and at
+each call a prisoner pushed forward to the doorway for his letter. She
+caught sight of the General on the outskirts of the crowd. Her brother
+would not come out until every letter had been distributed.
+
+But when he appeared in the doorway she read the good news in his face.
+He made his way briskly towards her, the prisoners falling back to
+give passage.
+
+"Right; it has come," he said. "Trot away home and have the valises
+packed, while I run into 'The Dogs' and order the chaise."
+
+Once clear of the town, she galloped. There was little need to hurry,
+for her own valise had been packed overnight.
+
+Having sent Mudge to attend to her brother's, she ran to Narcissus'
+room--his scriptorium, as he called it.
+
+Narcissus was at home to-day, busy with the cellar accounts. He took
+stock twice a year and composed a report in language worthy of a
+survey of the Roman Empire. Before he could look up, Dorothea had
+kissed him on the crown of his venerable head.
+
+"Such news, dear! Endymion has ordered a chaise from 'The Dogs,' and
+is going to take me to Dartmoor!"
+
+"Dartmoor--God bless my soul!" He rubbed his head, and added with a
+twinkle: "Why, what have you been doing?"
+
+"Endymion has a cartel of exchange for M. Raoul, and we are to carry
+it."
+
+"Ah, so that is what you two have been conspiring over? I smelt a rat
+somewhere. But, really, this is delightful of you--delightful of you
+both. Only, why on earth should you be carrying the release yourselves,
+in this weather."
+
+"He is very ill," said Dorothea, seriously.
+
+"Indeed? Poor fellow, poor fellow. Still, that scarcely explains--"
+
+"And you will be good, and take your meals regularly when Mudge beats
+the gong? And you won't sit up late and set fire to the house? But I
+must run off and tell everyone to take care of you."
+
+She kissed him again, and was half-way down the corridor before he
+called after her:
+
+"Dorothea, Dorothea! the drawings!"
+
+"Ah, to be sure; I forgot," she murmured, as he thrust the parcel into
+her hand.
+
+"Forgot? Forgot the drawings? But, God bless my soul!--"
+
+He passed his hand over his grey hairs and stared down the corridor
+after her.
+
+The roads were heavy to start, with, and beyond Chard they grew
+heavier. At Honiton, which our travellers reached at midnight, it was
+snowing; and Dorothea, when the sleepy chamber-maid aroused her at
+dawn, looked out upon a forbidding world of white. The postboys were
+growling, and she half feared that Endymion would abandon the journey
+for the day. But if he lacked her zeal, he had the true Englishman's
+hatred of turning back. She, who had known him always for a master of
+men, learned a new awe of her splendid brother. He took command; he
+cross-examined landlord and postboys, pooh-poohed their objections,
+extracted from them in half-a-dozen curt questions more information
+than, five minutes before, they were conscious of possessing, to judge
+from the scratching of heads which produced it; finally, he handed
+Dorothea into the chaise, sprang in himself, and closed discussion
+with a slam of the door. They were driven off amid the salaams of
+ostler, boots, waiter, and two chambermaids, among whom he had
+scattered largess with the lordliest hand.
+
+So the chaise ploughed through Exeter to Moreton Hampstead, where they
+supped and rested for another night. But before dawn they were off
+again. Snow lay in thick drifts on the skirts of the great moor, and
+snow whirled about them as they climbed, until day broke upon a howling
+desert, across which Dorothea peered but could discern no features.
+Not leagues but years divided Bayfield from this tableland, high over
+all the world, uninhabited, without tree or gate or hedge. Her eyes
+were heavy with lack of sleep, smarting with the bite of the north
+wind, which neither ceased nor eased until, towards ten o'clock, the
+carriage began to lumber downhill towards Two Bridges, under the lee of
+Crockern Tor. Beyond came a heavy piece of collar work, the horses
+dropping to a walk as they heaved through the drifts towards a
+depression between two tors closing the view ahead. Dorothea's eyes,
+avoiding the wind, were fixed on the tor to the left, when Endymion
+touched her hand and pointed towards the base of the other. There,
+grey--almost black--against the white hillside, a mass of masonry
+loomed up through the weather; the great circle of the War Prison.
+
+The road did not lead them to it direct. They must halt first at the
+bare village of Prince Town, and drink coffee and warm themselves at
+the "Plume of Feathers Inn," before facing the last few hundred yards
+beneath the lee of North Hessary. But a little before noon, Dorothea--
+still with a sense of being lifted on a platform miles above the world
+she knew--alighted before a tremendous archway of piled granite set
+in a featureless wall, and closed with a sheeted gate of iron. A grey-
+coated sentry, pacing here in front of his snow-capped box, challenged
+and demanded their business.
+
+"Visitors for the Commandant!" The sentry tugged at an iron bellpull,
+and a bell tolled twice within. Dorothea's feet were half-frozen in
+spite of her wraps--she stamped them in the snow while she studied the
+gateway and the enormous blocks which arched it, unhewn save for two
+words carved in Roman capitals--"PARCERE SUBJECTIS."
+
+A key turned in the wicket. "Visitors for the Commandant!" They
+stepped through, and after pausing a moment while the porter shot the
+lock again behind them, followed him across the yard to the
+Commandant's quarters.
+
+The outer wall of the great War Prison enclosed a circle of thirty
+acres; within it a second wall surrounded an acre in which stood the
+five rectangular blocks of the prison proper, with two slightly smaller
+buildings--the one a hospital, the other set apart for the petty
+officers; and between the inner and outer walls ran a _via militaris_,
+close on a mile in circumference, constantly paraded by the guard, and
+having raised platforms from which the sentinels could overlook the
+inner wall and the area. The area was not completely circular, since,
+where it faced the great gate, a segment had been cut out of it for the
+Commandant's quarters and outbuildings and the entrance yard, across
+which, our travellers now followed their guide.
+
+
+The Commandant hurried out from his office to welcome them--a bustling
+little officer with sandy hair and the kindliest possible face; a
+trifle self-important, obviously proud of his prison, and, after a
+fashion, of his prisoners too; anxiously, elaborately polite in his
+manner, especially towards Dorothea.
+
+"Major Westcote!"--he gave Endymion his full title--"My dear sir,
+this is indeed--And Miss Westcote?" he bowed as he was introduced,
+"Delighted--honoured! But what a journey! You must be famished,
+positively; you will be wanting luncheon at once--yes, really you must
+allow me. No? A glass of sherry, then, and a biscuit at least . . ."
+He ran to the door, called to his orderly to bring some glasses, and
+came back rubbing his hands. "It's an ill wind, as they say . . ."
+
+"We have come with the order about which we have corresponded."
+
+"For that poor fellow Raoul?" The Commandant nodded gaily and smiled;
+and Dorothea, who had been watching his face, felt the load dissolve
+and roll off her heart, as a pile of snow slides from a bough in the
+sunshine. "He is better, I am glad to report--out of bed and fairly
+convalescent indeed. But I hope my message did not alarm you
+needlessly. It was touch-and-go with him for twenty-four hours; still,
+he was bettering when I wrote. And to bring you all this way, and in
+such weather!"
+
+"My sister and I," explained Endymion, "take a particular interest in
+his case."
+
+But the voluble officer was not so easily silenced.
+
+"So, to be sure, I gathered." He bowed gallantly to Dorothea. "'O
+woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please'--not,
+of course, that I attribute any such foibles to Miss Westcote, but for
+the sake of the conclusion."
+
+"Can we see him?"
+
+"Eh? Before luncheon? Oh, most assuredly, if you wish it. He has been
+transferred to the Convalescents' Ward. We will step across at once."
+He drew from his pocket a small master-key, attached by a steel chain
+to his belt, and blew into the wards thoughtfully while he studied the
+paper handed to him by Endymion. "Quite in order, of course. No doubt,
+you and Miss Westcote would prefer to break the good news to him in
+private? Yes, yes; I will have him sent up to the Consulting Room. The
+Doctor has finished his morning rounds, and you will be quite alone
+there."
+
+He picked up his cap and escorted them out and across the court to the
+gate of the main prison. Beyond this Dorothea found herself in a vast
+snowy yard, along two sides of which ran covered ways or piazzas open
+to the air, but faced with iron bars, and behind these bars flitted the
+forms of the prisoners at exercise, stamping the flagged pavement to
+keep their starved blood in circulation. At a sight of the Commandant
+with his two visitors--so small a spectacle had power to divert them--
+all this movement, this stamping, was hushed suddenly. Voices broke
+into chatter; faces appeared between the bars and stared.
+
+"Yes," said the Commandant, reading Dorothea's thought, "a large family
+to be responsible for! How many would you guess, now?"
+
+"A thousand, at least," she murmured.
+
+"Six thousand! Each of those blocks yonder will accommodate fifteen
+hundred men. And then there is the hospital--usually pretty full at
+this season, I regret to say. Come, I won't detain you; but really in
+passing you must have a look at one of our dormitories."
+
+He threw open a door, and she gazed in upon a long-drawn avenue of iron
+pillars slung with double tiers of hammocks. The place seemed clean
+enough: at the far end of the vista a fatigue gang of prisoners was
+busy with pails and brushes; but either it had not been thoroughly
+ventilated, or the dense numbers packed in it for so many hours a day
+had given the building an atmosphere of its own, warm and unpleasant,
+if not precisely foetid, after the pure, stinging air of the moorland.
+
+"We can sleep seven hundred here," said the Commandant; "and another
+dormitory of the same size runs overhead. The top story they use as a
+promenade and for indoor recreation." He pointed to a number of grilles
+set in the wall at the back, at equal distances. "For air," he
+explained, "and also for keeping watch on _messieurs_. Yes, we find
+that necessary. Behind each is a small chamber, hollowed most
+scientifically, quite a little temple of acoustics. If Miss Westcote,
+now, would care to step into one and listen, while I stand below with
+the Major and converse in ordinary tones--"
+
+"No, no," Dorothea declined, hurriedly, and with a shiver.
+
+It hurt her to think of Raoul herded among seven hundred miserables in
+this endless barrack, his every movement overlooked, his smallest
+speech overheard, by an eaves-dropping sentry.
+
+"I think, Endymion chimed in, my sister feels her long journey, and
+would be glad to get our business over."
+
+"Ah, to be sure--a thousand pardons!"
+
+The Commandant shut the door and piloted them across to the hospital
+block. Here on the threshold the same warm, acrid atmosphere assailed
+Dorothea's nostrils, and almost choked her breathing. Their guide led
+the way up a flight of stone steps to the first floor, and down a
+whitewashed corridor, lit along one side with narrow barred casements.
+A little more than half-way down the corridor the blank wall facing
+these casements was pierced by a low arched passage. Into this burrow
+the Commandant dived; and, standing outside, they heard a key turned
+in a lock. He reappeared and beckoned to them.
+
+"From the gallery here," he whispered, "you look right down into the
+Convalescent Ward."
+
+Through the iron bars of the gallery Dorothea caught a glimpse of a
+long bare room, with twenty or thirty dejected figures in suits and
+caps of greyish-blue flannel, huddled about a stove. Some were playing
+at cards, others at dominoes. The murmur of their voices ascended and
+hummed in the little passage.
+
+"Hist! Your friend is below there, if you care to have a peep at him."
+
+But Dorothea had already drawn back. All this spying and listening
+revolted her. The polite Commandant noted the movement.
+
+"You prefer that he should be fetched at once?" He stepped past them
+into the corridor. "Smithers!" he called. "Smithers!"
+
+A hospital orderly appeared at a door almost opposite the passage,
+and saluted.
+
+"Run down to the Convalescent Ward and fetch up Number Two-six-seven-
+two.--I know the number of each of my children. I never make a
+mistake," he confided in Dorothea's ear. "As quick as you can, please!
+Stay; you may add that some visitors have called and wish to speak
+with him."
+
+The orderly saluted again, and hurried off.
+
+"You wish, of course, to see him alone together?"
+
+"I think," answered Endymion, slowly, "my sister would prefer a word
+or two with him alone."
+
+"Certainly. Will you step into the surgery, Miss Westcote?" He
+indicated the door at which the orderly had appeared. "Smithers will
+not take two minutes in fetching the prisoner; and perhaps, if you
+will excuse us, a visit to the hospital itself will repay your brother.
+We are rather proud of our sanitation here: a glance over our
+arrangements--five minutes only--"
+
+Endymion, at a nod from Dorothea, permitted himself to be led away by
+the inexorable man.
+
+She watched them to the end of the corridor, and had her hand on the
+surgery door to push it open, when a voice from below smote her ears.
+
+"Number Two-six-seven-two to come to the surgery at once, to see
+visitors!"
+
+The voice rang up through the little passage behind her. She turned;
+the door at the end of it stood half-open; beyond it she saw the bars
+of the gallery, and through these a space of whitewashed wall at the
+end of the ward.
+
+She was turning again, when a babble of voices answered the orderly's
+announcement. "Raoul! Raoul!" half-a-dozen were calling, and then one
+spoke up sharp and distinct:
+
+"Tenez, mon bonhomme, ce sera votre _gilet_, à coup sur!"
+
+A burst of laughter followed.
+
+"C'est son _gilet_--his little Waistcoat--à chauffer la poitrine--"
+
+"Des visiteurs, dit il? Voyons, coquin, n'y-a-t-il pas par hasard une
+visiteuse de la partie."
+
+"Une 'Waistcoat' par example?--de quarante ans environ, le drap un
+peu râpé . . ."
+
+"Qui se nomme Dorothée--ce que veut dire le gilet dieudonné . . ."
+
+"Easy now!" the Orderly's voice remonstrated. "Easy, I tell you, ye
+born mill-clappers! There's a lady in the party, if that's what you're
+asking."
+
+Dorothea put out a hand against the jamb of the surgery door, to
+steady herself She heard the smack of a palm below and some one uttered
+a serio-comic groan.
+
+"Enfoncé! Il m'a parié dix sous qu'elle viendrait avant le jour de Pan,
+et aussi du tabac avec tout le Numero Six. Nous en ferons la dot de
+Mademoiselle!" The fellow burst out singing--
+
+   "J'ai du bon tabac
+   Dans ma tabatière."
+
+"Dites donc, mon petit,"--but the cheerful epithet he bestowed on
+Raoul is unquotable here--"Elle ne fume pas, votre Anglaise? Elle
+n'est pas Créole, c'est entendu."
+
+Dorothea had stepped into the surgery. A small round table stood in the
+middle of the room; she caught at the edge of it and rested so for a
+moment, for the walls seemed to be swaying and she durst not lift her
+hands to shut out the roars of laughter. They rang in her ears and
+shouted and stunned her. Her whole body writhed.
+
+The hubbub below sank to a confused murmur. She heard footsteps in the
+corridor--the firm tramp of the orderly followed by the shuffle of
+list slippers.
+
+"Number Two-six-seven-two is outside, ma'am. Am I to show him in?"
+
+She bent her head and moved towards the fireplace. She heard him
+shuffle in, and the door shut behind him. Still she did not turn.
+
+"Dorothea!"--his voice shook with joy, with passion. How well she
+knew that deep Provençal tremolo. She could have laughed aloud in her
+bitterness.
+
+"Dorothea!"
+
+She faced him at length. He stood there, stretching out both hands to
+her. He was handsome as ever, but pale and sadly pinched. Beyond all
+doubt he had suffered. His grey-blue hospital suit hung about him in
+folds.
+
+In her eyes he read at once that something was wrong--but without
+comprehending. "You sent for me," he stammered; "you have come--"
+
+She found her voice and, to her surprise, it was quite firm.
+
+"Yes, we have brought your release," she said; and, watching his eyes,
+saw the joy leap up in them, saw it quenched the next instant as he
+composed his features to a fond solicitude for her.
+
+"But you?" he murmured. "What has happened? Tell me--no, do not draw
+away! Your hand, at least."
+
+Contempt, for herself or for him, gave her a moment's strength, but it
+broke down again.
+
+"It is horrible!" was all she answered and looked about her with a
+shiver.
+
+"Ah, the place frightens you! Well," he laughed, reassuringly, "it
+frightened me at first. But for the thought of you, dearest, to
+comfort--"
+
+She stepped past him and opened the door. For a moment a wild notion
+seized him that she was escaping, and he put out an imploring hand;
+but he saw that, with her hand on the jamb, she was listening, and he,
+too, listened. The voices in the Convalescent Ward came up to them,
+scarcely muffled, through the low passage, and with them a cackling
+laugh. Then he understood.
+
+Their eyes met. He bowed his head.
+
+"Nevertheless, I have suffered."
+
+He said it humbly, after many seconds, and in a voice so low that it
+seemed a second or two before she heard. For the first time she put
+out a hand and touched his sleeve.
+
+"Yes, you have suffered, and for me. Let me go on believing that. You
+did a noble thing, and I shall try to remember you by it--to remember
+that you were capable of it. 'It was for my sake,' I shall say, and
+then I shall be proud. Oh, yes, sometimes I shall be very proud! But
+in love--"
+
+Her voice faltered, and he looked up sharply.
+
+"In love"--she smiled, but passing faintly--"it's the little things,
+is it not? It's the little things that count."
+
+She touched his sleeve again, and passed into the room, leaving him
+there at a standstill, as Endymion and the Commandant came round the
+corner at the far end of the corridor.
+
+"Excuse me," said Endymion, and, stepping past Raoul without a glance,
+looked into the surgery. After a moment he shut the door quietly, and,
+standing with his back to it, addressed the prisoner: "I perceive, sir,
+that my sister has told you the news. We have effected an exchange for
+you, and the Commandant tells me that to-morrow, if the roads permit,
+you will be sent down to Plymouth and released. It is unnecessary for
+you to thank me; it would, indeed, be offensive. I wish you a safe
+passage home, and pray heaven to spare me the annoyance of seeing your
+face again."
+
+As Raoul bowed and moved away, dragging his feet weakly in their list
+slippers, Mr. Westcote turned to the Commandant, who during this
+address had kept a discreet distance.
+
+"With your leave, we will continue our stroll, and return for my
+sister in a few minutes."
+
+The Commandant jumped at the suggestion.
+
+
+Dorothea heard their footsteps retreating, and knew that her brother's
+thoughtfulness had found her this short respite. She had dropped into
+the orderly's chair, and now bowed her head upon the prison doctor's
+ledger, which lay open on the table before it.
+
+"Oh, my love! How could you do it? How could you? How could you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE NEW DOROTHEA
+
+
+Two hours later they set out on their homeward journey.
+
+The Commandant, still voluble, escorted them to the gate. As Dorothea
+climbed into the chaise and Endymion shook up the rugs and cushions, a
+large brown-paper parcel rolled out upon the snow. She gave a little
+cry of dismay:
+
+"The drawings!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"We forgot to deliver them."
+
+"Oh, confound the things!"
+
+Endymion was for pitching them back into the chaise.
+
+"But no!" she entreated. "Why, Narcissus believes it was to deliver
+them that we came!"
+
+So the Commandant amiably charged himself to hand the parcel to
+M. Raoul, and waved his adieux with it as the chaise rolled away.
+
+Of what had passed between Dorothea and Raoul at the surgery door
+Endymion knew nothing; but he had guessed at once, and now was assured
+by the tone in which she had spoken of the drawings, that the chapter
+was closed, the danger past. Coming, brother and sister had scarcely
+exchanged a word for miles together. Now they found themselves chatting
+without effort about the landscape, the horses' pace, the Commandant
+and his hospitality, the arrangements of the prison, and the prospects
+of a cosy dinner at Moreton Hampstead. It was all the smallest of small
+talk, and just what might be expected of two reputable middle-aged
+persons returning in a post-chaise from a mild jaunt; yet beneath it
+ran a current of feeling. In their different ways, each had been moved;
+each had relied upon the other for a degree of help which could not be
+asked in words, and had not been disappointed.
+
+Now that Dorothea's infatuation had escaped all risk of public
+laughter, Endymion could find leisure to admire her courage in
+confessing, in persisting until the wrong was righted, and, now at the
+last, in shutting the door upon the whole episode.
+
+And, now at the last, having shut the door upon it, Dorothea could
+reflect that her brother, too, had suffered. She knew his pride, his
+sensitiveness, his mortal dread of ridicule. In the smart of his wound
+he had turned and rent her cruelly, but had recovered himself and
+defended her loyally from worse rendings. She remembered, too, that he
+had distrusted Raoul from the first.
+
+He had been right. But had she been wholly wrong?
+
+In the dusk of the fifth evening after their departure the chaise
+rolled briskly in through Bayfield great gates and up the snowy drive.
+Almost noiselessly though it came, Mudge had the door thrown wide and
+stood ready to welcome them, with Narcissus behind in the comfortable
+glow of the hall.
+
+Dorothea's limbs were stiff, and on alighting she steadied herself for
+a moment by the chaise-door before stepping in to kiss her brother. In
+that moment her eyes took one backward glance across the park and
+rested on the lights of Axcester glimmering between the naked elms.
+
+"Well," demanded Narcissus, after exchange of greetings, "and what did
+he say about the drawings?"
+
+Dorothea had not expected the question in this form, and parried it
+with a laugh:
+
+"You and your drawings! I declare"--she turned to Endymion--"he has
+been thinking of them all the time, and affects no concern in our
+adventures!"
+
+"Which, nevertheless, have been romantic to the last degree," he added,
+playing up to her.
+
+"My dear Dorothea--" Narcissus expostulated.
+
+"But you are not going to evade me by any such tricks," she
+interrupted, sternly; "for that is what it comes to. I left you with
+the strictest orders to take care of yourself, and you ought to know
+that I shall answer nothing until you have been catechised. What have
+you been eating?"
+
+"My _dear_ Dorothea!"
+
+Narcissus gazed helplessly at Mudge; but Mudge had been seized with a
+flurry of his own, and misinterpreted the look as well as the stern
+question.
+
+"I--I reckon 'tis _me_, Miss," he confessed. "Being partial to onions,
+and taking that liberty in Mr. Endymion's absence, knowing his dislike
+of the effluvium--"
+
+Such are the pitfalls of a guilty conscience on the one hand, and, on
+the other, of being unexpectedly clever.
+
+An hour later, at dinner, Narcissus was informed that the drawings had
+been conveyed to M. Raoul, who, doubtless, would return them with
+hints for correction.
+
+"But had he nothing to say at the time?"
+
+"For my part," said Endymion, sipping his wine, "I addressed but one
+sentence to him; and Dorothea, I daresay, exchanged but half a dozen.
+Considering the shortness of the interview, and that our mission--at
+least, our ostensible mission"--Endymion glanced at Dorothea, with a
+smile at his own _finesse_--"was to carry him news of his release,
+you will admit--"
+
+"Oh--ah!--to be sure; I had forgotten the release," muttered
+Narcissus, and was resigned.
+
+"By the way," Dorothea asked, after a short pause, "what is happening
+at 'The Dogs' tonight? All the windows are lit up in the Orange Room.
+I saw it as I stepped out of the chaise."
+
+"Yes; I have to tell you"--Narcissus turned towards his brother--
+"that during your absence another of the prisoners has found his
+discharge--the old Admiral."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"He died this morning: but you knew, of course, it was only a question
+of days. Rochambeau was with him at the last. He has shown great
+devotion."
+
+"You have made all arrangements, of course?" For Narcissus was Acting
+Commissary in his brother's absence.
+
+"I rode in at once on hearing the news, which Zeally brought before
+daylight; and found the Lodge"--this was a Masonic Lodge formed among
+the prisoners, and named by them _La Paix Desiree_--"anxious to pay
+him something more than the full rites. With my leave they have hired
+the Orange Room, and turned it into a _chapelle ardente_; and there, I
+believe, he is reposing now, poor old fellow."
+
+"He has no kith nor kin, I understand."
+
+"None. He was never married, and his relatives went in the Terror--
+the most of them (so Rochambeau tells me) in a single week."
+
+Dorothea had heard the same story from the General and from Raoul. To
+this old warrior his Emperor had been friends, kindred, wife, and
+children--nay, almost God. He had enjoyed Napoleon's favour, and
+followed his star from the days of the Directory: in that favour and
+the future of France beneath that star his hopes had begun and ended.
+His private ambitions he had resigned without a word on the day when
+he put to sea out of Brest, under order from Paris, to perform a feat
+he knew to be impossible, with ships ill-found, under-manned, and half-
+victualled by cheating contractors: and he sailed cheerfully, believing
+himself sacrificed to some high purpose of his master's. When, the
+sacrifice made, he learned that the contractors slandered him to cover
+their own villainy, and that Napoleon either believed them or was
+indifferent, his heart broke. Too proud at first, he had ended by
+drawing up a statement and forwarding it from his captivity, with a
+demand for an enquiry. The answer to this was--the letter which never
+came.
+
+Dorothea thought of the room where she had danced and been happy: the
+many lights, the pagan figures merrymaking on the panels, the goddess
+on the ceiling with her cupids and scattered roses, and, in the centre
+of it all, that dead face, incongruous and calm.
+
+How small had been her tribulation beside his! And it was all over for
+him now--wages taken, account sealed up for judgment, _parole_ ended,
+and no heir to trouble over him or his good name.
+
+
+Next morning she rode into Axcester, as well to do some light shopping
+as because it seemed an age since her last visit, which, to be sure,
+was absurd, and she knew it. Happening to meet General Rochambeau, she
+drew rein and very gently offered her condolence on the loss of his
+old friend.
+
+The General pressed her hand gratefully.
+
+"Ah, never pity him, Mademoiselle. He carries a good pass for the
+Elysian Fields."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"The Emperor's _tabatière_: and, my faith! Miss Dorothea, there will be
+sneezings in certain quarters when he opens it there.
+
+  "Il a du bon tabac
+   Dans sa tabatière
+
+"has the Admiral. He had for you (if I may say it) a quite extraordinary
+respect and affection. The saints rest his brave soul!"
+
+The General lifted his tricorne. He never understood the tide of red
+which surged over Dorothea's face; but she conquered it, and went on
+to surprise him further:
+
+"I heard of this only last night. We have been visiting Dartmoor, my
+brother and I, with a release for--for that M. Raoul."
+
+"So I understood." He noted that her confusion had gone as suddenly as
+it came.
+
+"But since I am back in time, and it appears I was so fortunate as to
+win his regard, I would ask to see him--if it be permitted, and I may
+have your escort."
+
+"Certainly, Mademoiselle. You will, perhaps, wish to consult your
+brother though?"
+
+"I see no necessity," she answered.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The General was not the only one to discover a new and firmer note in
+Dorothea's voice. Life at Bayfield slipped back into its old
+comfortable groove, but the brothers fell--and one of them
+consciously--into a habit of including her in their conversations and
+even of asking her advice. One day there arrived a bulky parcel for
+Narcissus; so bulky indeed and so suspiciously heavy, that it bore
+signs of several agitated official inspections, and nothing short of
+official deference to Endymion (under cover of whom it was addressed)
+could account for its having come through at all. For it came from
+France. It contained a set of the Bayfield drawings exquisitely cut in
+stone; and within the cover was wrapped a lighter parcel addressed to
+Miss Dorothea Westcote--a rose-tree, with a packet of seeds tied
+about its root.
+
+No letter accompanied the gift, at the sentimentality of which she
+found herself able to smile. But she soaked the root carefully in warm
+water, and smiled again at herself, as she planted it at the foot of
+the glacis beneath her boudoir window--the very spot where Raoul had
+fallen. Against expectation--for the journey had sorely withered it--
+the plant throve. She lived to see it grown into a fine Provence rose,
+draping the whole south-east corner of Bayfield with its yellow bloom.
+
+"After all," she said one afternoon, stepping back in the act of
+pruning it, "provided one sees things in their right light and is
+not a fool--"
+
+But this was long after the time of which we are telling.
+
+Folks no longer smile at sentiment. They laugh it down: by which,
+perhaps, no great harm would be done if their laughter came through the
+mind; but it comes through the passions, and at the best chastises one
+excess by another--a weakness by a rage, which is weakness at its
+worst. I fear Dorothea may be injured in the opinion of many by the
+truth--which, nevertheless, has to be told--that her recovery was
+helped not a little by sentiment. What? Is a poor lady's heart to be
+in combustion for a while and then--pf!--the flame expelled at a
+blast, with all that fed it? That is the heroic cure, no doubt: but
+either it kills or leaves a room swept and garnished, inviting devils.
+In short it is the way of tragedy, and for tragedy Dorothea had no
+aptitude at all. She did what she could--tidied up.
+
+For an instance.--She owned a small book which had once belonged to a
+namesake of hers--a Dorothea Westcote who had lived at the close of
+the seventeenth and opening of the eighteenth centuries, a grand-
+daughter of the first Westcote of Bayfield, married (so said the family
+history) in 1704 to a squire from across the Devonshire border. The
+book was a slender one, bound in calf, gilt-edged, and stamped with a
+gold wreath in the centre of each cover. Dorothea called it an album;
+but the original owner had simply written in, "Dorothea Westcote, her
+book," on the first page, with the date 1687 below, and filled four-and-
+twenty of its blank pages with poetry (presumably her favourite pieces),
+copied in a highly ornate hand. Presumably also she had wearied of the
+work, let the book lie, and coming to it later, turned it upside down
+and started with a more useful purpose: for three pages at the end
+contained several household recipes in the same writing grown severer,
+including "Garland Wine (Mrs. Massiter's Way)" and "A good Cottage Pie
+for a Pore Person."
+
+Now the family history left no doubt that in 1687 this Dorothy had been
+a bare fifteen years old; and although some of the entries must have
+been made later (for at least two of them had not been composed at the
+time), the bulk of the poems proved her a sprightly young lady whenever
+she transcribed them. Indeed, some were so very free in calling a spade
+a spade, that our Dorothea, having annexed the book, years ago, on the
+strength of her name, and dipped within, had closed it in sudden virgin
+terror and thrust it away at the back of her wardrobe.
+
+There it had lain until disinterred in the hurried search for linen for
+Mr. Raoul's wound. Next morning Dorothea was on the point of hiding it
+again, when, as she opened the covers idly, her eyes fell on these lines
+
+   "But at my back I alwaies hear
+   Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
+   And yonder all before me lie
+   Desarts of vast Eternitie . . ."
+
+She read on. The poem, after all, turned out to be but a lover's appeal
+to his mistress to give over coyness and use time while she might; but
+Dorothea wondered why its solemn language should have hit her
+namesake's fancy, and, turning a few more pages, discovered that this
+merry dead girl had chosen and copied out other verses which were more
+than solemn. How had she dug these gloomy gems out of Donne, Ford,
+Webster, and set them here among loose songs and loose epigrams from
+_Wit's Remembrancer_ and the like? for gems they were, though Dorothea
+did not know it nor whence they came. Dorothea had small sense of
+poetry: it was the personal interest which led her on. To be sure the
+little animal (she had already begun to construct a picture of her)
+might have secreted these things for no more reason than their beauty,
+as a squirrel will pick up a ruby ring and hide it among his nuts.
+But why were they, all so darkly terrible? Had she, being young, been
+afraid to die? Rather it seemed as if now and then, in the midst of
+her mirth, she had paused and been afraid to live.
+
+And in the end she had married a Devonshire squire, which on the face
+of it is no darkly romantic thing to do. But it was over the maiden
+that our Dorothea pondered, until by and by the small shade took
+features and a place in her leisure time: a very companionable shade,
+though tantalising; and innocent, though given to mischievously
+sportive hints. Dorothea sometimes wondered what her own fate would
+have been, with this naughtiness in her young blood--and this
+seriousness.
+
+It was sentiment, of course; but it is also a fact that this ghost of
+a kinswoman brought help to her. For such a hurt as hers the specific
+is to get away from self and look into such human thought as is kindly
+yet judicial. Some find this help in philosophy, many more in wise
+Dorothea had no philosophy, and no human being to consult; for
+admirably as Endymion had behaved, he remained a person with obvious
+limits. The General held aloof: she had no reason to fear that he
+suspected her secret. And so _Natura inventrix_, casting about for a
+cure, found and brought her this companion of her own sex from
+between the covers of a book.
+
+I set down the fact merely and its share in Dorothea's recovery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GENERAL ROCHAMBEAU TELLS A STORY;
+AND THE TING-TANG RINGS FOR THE LAST TIME
+
+
+More than a year had passed when, one February morning, as he left the
+breakfast table, Endymion handed Dorothea a slip of paper.
+
+"Do you think we can entertain at dinner next Wednesday? If you can
+manage it, I wish these invitations written out and despatched before
+noon."
+
+"Next Wednesday?" Dorothea's eyebrows went up. Invitations to dine at
+Bayfield had always, as we know, been issued just three weeks ahead.
+
+"If it will not inconvenience you," he answered; and his manner added,
+as plainly as words, "I beg that you will not press for my reasons."
+He was booted already for his ride into Axcester.
+
+Dorothea ran her eye down the list: The Vicomte de Tocqueville, General
+Rochambeau. . . . All the prisoners of distinction were included as
+well as the chief notables of the neighbourhood, which made it a long
+one, even without a full balance of ladies.
+
+She went off to her room at once and penned the letters--twenty-five
+in all.
+
+Naturally, this break in the Bayfield custom set speculation going
+among the invited; but it is doubtful if Narcissus, any more than
+Dorothea, knew the reason of it. And on Wednesday, when the guests
+assembled, the only one who might be suspected of sharing Endymion's
+secret was (oddly enough) General Rochambeau. The old fellow seemed
+ten years younger, and wore an air of sportiveness, almost of raillery,
+as he caught his host's eye. The compliments he paid Lady Bateson
+across the table were prodigious, and gave that good soul a hazy
+sensation of being wafted back to the court of Louis XV, and behaving
+brilliantly under the circumstances.
+
+"Really, my dear Mr. Westcote," she protested at length, being a
+chartered utterer of indiscretions which (as she delighted to prove)
+Endymion would not tolerate in others, but took from her and allowed,
+with a magisterial smile, to pass,--"really, I trust you have not
+taken off the General's parole, or to-morrow I shall have to lock my
+gates for fear of a chaise-and-pair."
+
+"Ah, to-morrow!" the General echoed, turning to Endymion, with a twinkle
+of malice in his eye. "But when Mr. Westcote releases us, it will be en
+masse; and then, believe me, I shall come with an army, since I
+underrate neither the strength of the fortress nor the feeling of the
+country."
+
+"That reminds me," put in a Mr. Saxby, of Yeovil, or near by, "we have
+heard of no escape or attempts at escape from Axcester this winter. I
+congratulate you, Westcote--if the General will not think it
+offensive."
+
+"Reassure yourself, my dear sir." General Rochambeau bowed. "No," he
+continued, lifting his eyes for a moment towards Dorothea, "in one way
+or another we are rid of our fence-breakers, and the rest must share
+the credit with our Commissary."
+
+"And yet the temptation--," began Lady Bateson.
+
+"Is great, Madame, for some temperaments. But the Vicomte, here, and I
+have tried to teach our poor compatriots that in resisting it they
+fight for France as surely as if they stormed a breach. And, by the
+way, I heard a story this morning--if the company would care to hear--"
+
+They begged him to tell it.
+
+"But not if the ladies leave us to our wine." He turned to Dorothea.
+"If Miss Westcote will rally and stay her forces, good; for, though it
+came to me casually in a letter, it is a tale of the sort which used
+to be fashionable in my youth--ah! long before M. le Tocqueville
+remembers--and for the telling it demanded an audience of ladies,
+which must help me, who am rusty, to recapture the style, if I can."
+
+He pushed back his chair and, crossing his legs, leaned forward and
+pushed his fingers across the polished mahogany till they touched the
+base of a wine-glass beside his plate. One or two of the guests smiled
+at this formal opening. The Vicomte's eyes showed something of
+amusement behind their apathy. But all listened.
+
+"My tale, Miss Dorothea, is of a certain M. Benest, who until a few
+weeks ago was a prisoner on parole in one of your towns on the south
+coast. He had been _chef de hune_ (which, as you know, is chief petty
+officer) of the _Embuscade_ frigate, captured by Sir John Warren. In
+the action which lost her M. Benest lost a leg, and was placed in an
+English hospital, where they gave him a wooden one.
+
+"Now how it came about that on his discharge he was allowed to live in
+a town--call it a village, rather--a haven, at any rate--where for
+a couple of napoleons he might have found a boat any night of the week
+to smuggle him over to Roscoff, is more than I can tell you. It may be
+that he had once borne another name than Benest, one to command
+privileges: since many of my countrymen, as you know, have found it
+prudent in recent years to change their names and take up with
+callings below their real rank. There, at any rate, he was; and on the
+day after his arrival, he and the Rector of the parish--who was also
+a magistrate--took a walk and marked out the bounds together: two
+miles along the coast to the east, two miles along the coast to the
+west, and two miles up the valley behind the town. At the end of these
+two miles the valley itself branched into two and climbed inland, the
+road branching likewise; and M. Benest's mark was the signpost at the
+angle.
+
+"Well, at first he walked little, because of his wooden leg. He had
+lodgings with a widow in a white-washed cottage overlooking the
+harbour-side, and seemed happy enough there, tending a monster
+geranium which grew against the house-wall, or pottering about the
+quay and making friends with the children. For the children soon picked
+up an affection for him, seeing that he was never too busy to drop his
+gardening and come and be umpire at their games of 'tig' or 'prisoners'
+bars.' Also he had stories for them, and halfpennies or sweetmeats in
+mysterious pockets, and songs which he taught them: _Giroflé, girofla_,
+and _Compagnons de la Marjolaine_, and _Les Petits Bateaux_--do you
+know it?--
+
+   "'Papa, les p'tits bateaux
+   Qui vont sur I'eau,
+   Ont-ils des jambes?
+   --Mais oui, petit beta,
+   S'ils n'en avaient pas, ils n' march'raient pas!'
+
+"In short, M. Benest, with his loose blue coat and three-cornered
+naval cap, endeared himself to the children, and through the children
+to everyone.
+
+"It was some time before he began to take walks; and I believe he had
+been living in the town for six months, when one day, having stumped
+up the valley road for a change, and just as he was facing about for
+the return journey, he heard a voice in his own language singing to
+the air of _Vive Henri Quatre_.
+
+"The voice was shaky and, I dare say, uncertain in its upper notes;
+but it fetched M. Benest right-about-face again. He perceived that it
+came from the garden of a solitary cottage up the road, a gunshot and
+more beyond his signpost. But a tall hedge interrupted his view, and,
+though he stared long and earnestly, all he could see that day was a
+pea-stick nodding above it.
+
+"He came again, however,--not the next day, but the day after,--and
+was rewarded by a glimpse of a white cap with bows which seemed at
+that distance of a purplish colour. Its wearer was standing in the
+gateway and exchanging a word with the Rector, who had reined up his
+horse in the road.
+
+"M. Benest walked home and made inquiries; but his landlady could only
+tell him that the cottage was rented by two ladies, sisters,--she had
+heard that they came from the West Indies,--who saw nobody, but
+wished only to be let alone. One of them, who suffered from an
+incurable complaint, was never seen; the other could be seen on fine
+days in her garden, where she worked vigorously; and what the pair
+lived on was a mystery, for they bought nothing in the town or of
+their neighbours.
+
+"On learning this, M. Benest became very cunning indeed. He bought a
+fishing rod.
+
+"For I ought to have told you that a stream ran down the valley beside
+the road, and it contained trout--perhaps as many as a dozen.
+M. Benest had no desire to catch them; but, you see, he was forced to
+acquire some show of expertness in order to deceive the wayfarers who
+paused and watched him; and in time (I am told) the fish, after being
+unhooked once or twice and restored apologetically to the water, came
+to enjoy disconcerting him. You must understand that he had no foolish
+illusions concerning the white cap and purplish ribbons--the
+Mademoiselle Henriette, as he discovered she was called. He only knew
+that here were two women, his compatriots, poor certainly, often hungry
+perhaps, shipwrecked so close to him upon this corner of (pardon me,
+Miss Dorothea) an unfriendly land, yet divided from any comfort he
+could bring by fifty yards of road and his word of honour. She must be
+of the true blood of France who quavered out _Vive Henri Quatre_ so
+resolutely over her digging and hoeing: but the sound of a French voice
+might hearten her as hers had heartened him. Therefore he sang lustily
+while he angled--which is not good for sport; and when he caught a
+fish, broke into paeans addressed less to the captive--with which,
+between you and me, he was secretly annoyed--than to an ear unseen,
+perhaps a quarter of a mile away.
+
+"But there came a day--how shall I tell it?--when calamity fell upon
+the cottage. For some time the farmers up the valley had been missing
+sheep. What so easy now as to suspect the two women who were never
+known to buy either bread or butcher's meat? You can guess! A rabble
+marched up from the town and broke in upon them. It found nothing, of
+course; and I am told that at sight of the face of the poor elder
+sister it fled back in panic, leaving the place a wreck.
+
+"It so happened that M. Benest had pretermitted his angling, that
+afternoon, for a stroll along the cliff: but he heard the news on his
+return, from his landlady, while he sat at tea--that is to say, he
+heard a part of it, for before the story was out he had set down his
+teacup, caught up hat and stick, and stumped out of the house. The most
+of the townspeople were indoors at tea, discussing the sensation; the
+few he encountered had no greeting from him. He looked neither to the
+right nor to the left; had no ears for his friends, the trout, as they
+rose at the evening flies. He reached the signpost and--walked past
+it! He stumped straight up to the garden gate, which stood ajar, and
+pushed it wide with his stick.
+
+"There were signs of trampling on the flower-beds; but--for it was
+July--the whole garden blazed with hollyhocks, oeillets, sweet
+Williams, sweet peas, above all with that yellow flower--mimulus,
+monkey flower, is it not?--which grows so profusely in gardens beside
+streams. The air was weighted with scent of the réséda and of the
+jasmine which climbed the wall and almost choked the roses.
+
+"The cottage door stood ajar also. He thrust this open too, and for
+the first time stood face to face with Mademoiselle Henriette.
+
+"She sat by the kitchen table, with one arm flung across it, and her
+body bowed with grief. At her feet lay a trodden bunch of the monkey
+flowers: and at the tap-tap of his wooden leg on the threshold she
+sprang up and faced him, across the yellow blossoms.
+
+"'Mademoiselle,' he began, 'I have just learnt--but it is an infamy!
+_Permettez_--I am French, I also, though you do not know me perhaps.'
+
+"And with that M. Benest stammered and came to a halt, for her eyes
+were worse than woeful. They were accusing--yes, accusing _him_. Of
+what? _Nom de tonnerre_, what had he done?
+
+"'You, Monsieur! _You_--an officer of France!'
+
+"_'Mais quel rapport y a-t-il?'_
+
+"'Your _parole_, Monsieur!'
+
+"_'Peste!_ I forgot,' said M. Benest, half to himself.
+
+"'Forgot? Forgot your _parole? Mais ecoutez donc! Nous savons souffrir,
+nous autres franfaises . . . Et la petite qui meurt--et--et moi qui
+mourrai Presqu' a l'heure--mais nous nous en tenons a' ne pas
+dishonorer la Patrie a la fin. Ca finira bien, sous-officier--allez-
+vous--allez-vous en. Mais allez!'_
+
+"She stamped her foot upon the flowers, and M. Benest turned and fled
+from her. Nay, in his haste, taking a short-cut towards the signpost,
+he plunged his wooden leg deep in the marsh, and tumbled helpless,
+overwhelmed with shame.
+
+"He never passed the signpost again, nor caught another glimpse of
+Mademoiselle Henriette's cap. Three days later the Rector broke into
+the cottage and discovered her seated, dead and stiff, her hands
+stained with digging her sister's grave.
+
+"And the cottage had no new tenant. Only M. Benest continued to eye it
+wistfully, as he cast his flies and pondered on his offence, which she
+had died without forgiving.
+
+"But one July, two years after her death, a patch of gold appeared on
+the marsh below the hedge--a patch of the monkey-flower. Some seeds
+had been blown thither, or carried down by the stream.
+
+"Next July the patch had doubled its length.
+
+"'The flowers are travelling towards me,' said M. Benest.
+
+"And year by year the stream brought them nearer. That was a terrible
+July for him when they came within two feet of the signpost; but he
+would not stretch a hand beyond it.
+
+"'She coquets with her forgiveness, the poor Mademoiselle Henriette.
+But I can wait: _'faut pas deshonorer la patrie a la fin!'_
+
+"Before the next July he had made sure of one plant at least on his
+side of the signpost; and fished beside it day after day, fearful lest
+some animal should browse upon it. But when the happy morning came for
+it to open, and M. Benest knelt beside his prize, he drew back a hand.
+
+"'Is it quite open?' he asked. 'Better wait, since all is safe, for the
+sun to warm it a little longer.'
+
+"And he waited, until a trout, to remind him, perhaps, took a fly with
+a splash beneath his nose. Then, with a start, M. Benest's fingers
+closed and snapped off the yellow blossom.
+
+"'She has forgiven me,' said he. Now I can forgive myself.'"
+
+For a moment or two, though his story was ended, the General continued
+to toy with the stem of his wine glass. One or two of the guests cried
+"Bravo!" But Lady Bateson's eyes were wet, and Dorothea gazed hard for
+a while into the polished surface of the mahogany before she recalled
+herself, and, with a nod, swept the ladies away to the drawing-room.
+
+Later, in a pause between two songs, the General dropped into a seat
+beside her.
+
+"Can you guess who sent me that story?" he asked. "It was M. Raoul;
+and he travelled across from Plymouth in the ship with this M. Benest,
+who happened to get his exchange at about the same time. It was clever
+of him to worm out the story--if, indeed, he did not invent it. But
+that young man has genius for pathos."
+
+"I did not know that you corresponded."
+
+"Indeed, nor did I. He chose to write. I may answer; and, again, I may
+not. To tell you the truth, I have never been sure if we condemned him
+quite justly."
+
+Dorothea found herself able to look straight into the kindly old eyes.
+
+"It was a beautiful story. Did you tell it for me?"
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle, in thanks and in contrition. We are all prisoners
+in this world; but while it is certain you have made fortitude easier
+for us, I have suspected that there was a time when I, for one, might
+have been bolder and repaid you, but stood aside. Also, I think you no
+longer require help."
+
+"No longer, General. But what you say is true: we are all prisoners
+here, or sentries at the best." And Dorothea, resting her fan on her
+lap, let these lines fall from her, not consciously quoting, but
+musing on each word as it fell:
+
+   "Brutus and Cato might discharge their souls,
+   And give them furloughs for another world;
+   But we, like sentries, are obliged to stand
+   In starless nights, and wait the appointed hour."
+
+The General stared.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, what poet taught you that?"
+
+"It was a kinswoman," she answered, and caught herself blushing. "I do
+not know the author."
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The secret of the Commissary's dinner-party came out early next morning,
+when the call came for the prisoners to leave Axcester. And, whenever
+Dorothea looked back on this epoch in her life, what she found most
+wonderful was the suddenness of its end. As day broke in a drizzle, and
+before she was well awake, a troop of dragoons, followed by a company
+of the 52nd Regiment of foot, passed the Bayfield gates on the way to
+Axcester. The troopers entered the town while the Ting-tang was
+sounding, and before the roll could be called the prisoners were
+surrounded. Their release had come; and though many had sighed for it
+for years, it found them quite unprepared.
+
+Their release had come; but first they must be marched through the
+length of the country to Kelso, there to await the formalities of
+exchange. At four in the afternoon the infantry marched out with the
+first great batch. Early next morning the rest--owners of furniture,
+granted a few hours to arrange for its storage or sale--followed their
+comrades. There was no cloud of dust upon the road for Dorothea to
+watch. They departed in sheets of rain and under the dusk of dawn. She
+never again saw General Rochambeau.
+
+It is recorded that in his fifty-seventh year Endymion Westcote married
+(but the bride was not Lady Bateson), and that children were born to
+him. Narcissus lived on at Bayfield and compiled at his leisure a
+_History of Axcester_, which mentions the decoration of the Orange Room
+by "a young Frenchman of talent, who has been good enough to assist
+the author in a most important work." But Dorothea preferred her
+independence and a cottage not far from the bridge, where Endymion's
+children might romp as they listed, but never seemed to disturb its
+exquisite order.
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Westcotes, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Westcotes
+
+Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+Release Date: December 30, 2003  [eBook #10548]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTCOTES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Guus van Baalen
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+  1. Words which may seem to be transcriber's typos, or otherwise
+     suspect, but which are reproduced faithfully (archaic spellings,
+     printer's typos--sometimes I couldn't tell):
+
+     Ch. I:    befel, undigged
+     Ch. III:  chaperon
+     Ch. IV:   babby, mun, valtz
+     Ch. V:    zounded, dimpsey, after'n, ax'n, ax
+     Ch. VI:   picquet, damitol
+     Ch. XI:   alwaies, Desarts, Eternitie
+
+  2. Diphthongs, given as single characters in the printed copy, are
+     transcribed as two separate characters.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WESTCOTES
+
+by
+
+ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+
+
+MY DEAR HENRY JAMES,
+
+A spinster, having borrowed a man's hat to decorate her front hall,
+excused herself on the ground that the house 'wanted a something.'
+By inscribing your name above this little story I please myself at
+the risk of helping the reader to discover not only that it wants a
+something, but precisely what that something is. It wants--to confess
+and have done with it--all the penetrating subtleties of insight, all
+the delicacies of interpretation, you would have brought to Dorothea's
+aid, if for a moment I may suppose her worth your championing. So I
+invoke your name to stand before my endeavour like a figure outside
+the brackets in an algebraical sum, to make all the difference by
+multiplying the meaning contained.
+
+But your consent gives me another opportunity even more warmly desired.
+And I think that you, too, will take less pleasure in discovering how
+excellent your genius appears to one who nevertheless finds it a
+mystery in operation, than in learning that he has not missed to
+admire, at least, and with a sense almost of personal loyalty, the
+sustained and sustaining pride in good workmanship by which you have
+set a common example to all who practise, however diversely, the art
+in which we acknowledge you a master.
+
+A. T. QUILLER-COUCH
+
+October 25th, 1901
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER I     THE WESTCOTES OF BAYFIELD
+
+CHAPTER II    THE ORANGE ROOM
+
+CHAPTER III   A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL
+
+CHAPTER IV    ENCOUNTER BETWEEN A HIGH HORSE AND A HOBBY
+
+CHAPTER V     BEGINS WITH ANCIENT HISTORY AND ENDS WITH AN OLD STORY
+
+CHAPTER VI    FATE IN A LAURELLED POST-CHAISE
+
+CHAPTER VII   LOVE AND AN OLD MAID
+
+CHAPTER VIII  CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES
+
+CHAPTER IX    DOROTHEA CONFESSES
+
+CHAPTER X     DARTMOOR
+
+CHAPTER XI    THE NEW DOROTHEA
+
+CHAPTER XII   GENERAL ROCHAMBEAU TELLS A STORY; AND THE TING-TANG RINGS
+              FOR THE LAST TIME
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WESTCOTES OF BAYFIELD
+
+
+A mural tablet in Axcester Parish Church describes Endymion Westcote as
+"a conspicuous example of that noblest work of God, the English Country
+Gentleman." Certainly he was a typical one.
+
+In almost every district of England you will find a family which,
+without distinguishing itself in any particular way, has held fast to
+the comforts of life and the respect of its neighbours for generation
+after generation. Its men have never shone in court, camp, or senate;
+they prefer tenacity to enterprise, look askance upon wit (as a
+dangerous gift), and are even a little suspicious of eminence. On the
+other hand they make excellent magistrates, maintain a code of manners
+most salutary for the poor in whose midst they live and are looked up
+to; are as a rule satisfied, like the old Athenian, if they leave to
+their heirs not less but a little more than they themselves inherited,
+and deserve, as they claim, to be called the backbone of Great Britain.
+Many of the women have beauty, still more have an elegance which may
+pass for it, and almost all are pure in thought, truthful, assiduous in
+deeds of charity, and marry for love of those manly qualities which
+they have already esteemed in their brothers.
+
+Such a family were the Westcotes of Bayfield, or Bagvil, in 1810. Their
+"founder" had settled in Axcester towards the middle of the seventeenth
+century, and prospered--mainly, it was said, by usury. A little before
+his death, which befel in 1668, he purchased Bayfield House from a
+decayed Royalist who had lost his only son in the Civil Wars; and to
+Bayfield and the ancestral business (exalted now into Banking) his
+descendants continued faithful. One or both of the two brothers who,
+with their half-sister, represented the family in 1810, rode in on
+every week-day to their Bank-office in Axcester High Street,--a
+Georgian house of brick, adorned with a porch of plaster fluted to the
+shape of a sea-shell, out of which a. Cupid smiled down upon a brass
+plate and the inscription "WESTCOTE AND WESTCOTE," and on the first
+floor, with windows as tall as the rooms, so that from the street you
+could see through one the shapely legs of Mr. Endymion Westcote at his
+knee-hole table, and through another the legs of Mr. Narcissus. The
+third and midmost window was a dummy, having been bricked up to avoid
+the window-tax imposed by Mr. Pitt--in whose statesmanship, however,
+the brothers had firmly believed. Their somewhat fantastic names were
+traditional in the Westcote pedigree and dated from, the seventeenth
+century.
+
+Endymion, the elder, (who took the lead of Narcissus in all, things),
+was the fine flower of the Westcote stocks, and, out of question, the
+most influential man in Axcester and for many a mile round justice of
+the Peace for the county of Somerset and Major of its Yeomanry, he
+served "our town," (so he called it) as Overseer of the Poor, Governor
+of the Grammar School, Chairman of Feoffees, Churchwarden, everything
+in short but Mayor--an office which he left to the tradesmen, while
+taking care to speak of it always with respect, and indeed to see it
+properly filled. The part of County Magistrate--to which he had been
+born--he played to perfection, and with a full sense of its dignified
+amenity. (It was whispered that the Lord Lieutenant himself stood in
+some awe of him.) His favourite character, however, was that of plain
+citizen of his native town. "I'm an Axcester man," he would declare in
+his public speeches, and in his own way he loved and served the little
+borough. For its good he held its Parliamentary representation in the
+hollow of his hand; and, as Overseer of the Poor, had dared public
+displeasure by revising the Voters' List and defying a mandamus of the
+Court of King's Bench rather than allow Axcester to fail in its duty
+of returning two members to support Mr. Percevall's Ministry. In 1800,
+when the price of wheat rose to 184s a quarter, a poor woman dropped
+dead in the market place of starvation. At once a mob collected,
+hoisted a quartern-loaf on a pole with the label--"We will have Bread
+or Blood," and started to pillage the shop's in High Street. It was
+Endymion Westcote who rode up single-handed, (they, were carrying the
+only constable on their shoulders) and faced and dispersed the rioters.
+It was he who headed the subscription list, prevailed on the purchase a
+wagon-load of potatoes and persuaded the people to plant them--for
+even the seed potatoes had been eaten, and the gardens lay undigged.
+It was he who met the immediate famine by importing large quantities of
+rice. Finally, it was he, through his influence with the county, who
+brought back prosperity by getting the French prisoners sent to Axcester.
+
+We shall talk of these French prisoners by and by. To conclude this
+portrait of Endymion Westcote. He was a handsome, fresh-complexioned
+man, over six feet in height, and past his forty-fifth year; a bachelor
+and a Protestant. In his youth he had been noted for gallantry, and
+preserved some traces of it in his address. His grandfather had
+married a French lady, and although this union had not sensibly diluted
+the Westcote blood, Endymion would refer to it to palliate a youthful
+taste for playing the fiddle. He spoke French fluently, with a British
+accent which, when appointed Commissary, he took pains to improve by
+conversation with the prisoners, and was fond of discussing heredity
+with the two most distinguished of them--the Vicomte de Tocqueville
+and General Rochambeau.
+
+Narcissus, the younger brother, had neither the height nor the good
+looks nor the masterful carriage of Endymion, and made no pretence to
+rival him as a man of affairs. He professed to be known as the student
+of the family, dabbled in archaeology, and managed two or three local
+societies and field clubs, which met ostensibly to listen to his
+papers, but really to picnic. An accident had decided this bent of his
+--the discovery, during some repairs, of a fine Roman pavement beneath
+the floor of Bayfield House, At the age of eighteen, during a Cambridge
+vacation, Narcissus had written and privately printed a description of
+this pavement, proving not only that its tessellae represented scenes
+in the mythological story of Bacchus, but that the name "Bayfield," in
+some old deeds and documents written "Bagvil" or "Baggevil," was
+neither more nor less than a corruption of _Bacchi Villa_. Axcester and
+its neighbourhood are rich in Roman remains--the town stands, indeed,
+on the old Fosse Way--and, tempted by early success, Narcissus rode
+his hobby further and further afield. Now, at the age of forty-two, he
+could claim to be an authority on the Roman occupation of Britain, and
+especially on the conquests of Vespasian.  The circle of--the
+Westcotes' acquaintance gathered in the fine hall of Bayfield--or, as
+Narcissus preferred to call it, the atrium--drank tea, admired the
+pavement, listened to the alleged exploits of Vespasian, and wondered
+when the brothers would marry. Time went on, repeating these
+assemblies; and the question became, Will they ever marry? Apparently
+they had no thought of it, no idea that it was expected of them; and
+since they had both passed forty, the question might be taken as
+answered. But that so personable a man as Endymion Westcote would let
+the family perish was monstrous to suppose. He kept his good looks and
+his fresh complexion; even now some maiden would easily be found to
+answer his Olympian nod; and a vein of recklessness sometimes cropped
+up through his habitual caution, and kept his friends alert for
+surprises. In the hunting-field, for instance,--and he rode to hounds
+twice a week,--he made a rule of avoiding fences; but the world quite
+rightly set this down to a proper care for his person rather than to
+timidity, since on one famous occasion, riding up to find the whole
+field hesitating before a "rasper" (they were hunting a strange country
+that day), he put his horse at it and sailed over with a nonchalance
+relieved only by his ringing laugh on the farther side. It was odds he
+would clear the fence of matrimony, some day, with the same casual
+heartiness; and, in any case, he was masterful enough to insist on
+Narcissus marrying, should it occur to him to wish it.
+
+Oddly enough, the gossips who still arranged marriages for the brothers
+had given over speculating upon their hostess, Miss Dorothea. She could
+not, of course, perpetuate the name; but this by no means accounted for
+all the difference in their concern. Dorothea Westcote was now thirty-
+seven, or five years younger than Narcissus, whose mother had died soon
+after his birth. The widower had created one of the few scandals in the
+Westcote history by espousing, some four years later, a young woman of
+quite inferior class, the daughter of a wholesale glover in Axcester.
+The new wife had good looks, but they did not procure her pardon; and
+she made the amplest and speediest amends by dying within twelve
+months, and leaving a daughter who in no way resembled her. The husband
+survived her just a dozen years.
+
+Dorothea, the daughter, was a plain girl; her brothers, though kind and
+fond of her after a fashion, did not teach her to forget it. She loved
+them, but her love partook of awe: they were so much cleverer, as well
+as handsomer, than she. Having no mother or friend of her own sex to
+imitate, she grow into an awkward woman, sensitive to charm in others
+and responding to it without jealousy, but ignorant of what it meant or
+how it could be acquired. She picked up some French from her brother
+Endymion, and masters were hired who taught her to dance, to paint in
+water colours, and to play with moderate skill upon the harp. But few
+partners had ever sought her in the ballroom; her only drawings which
+anyone ever asked to see were half-a-dozen of the Bayfield pavement,
+executed for Narcissus' monograph; and her harp she played in her own
+room. Now and then Endymion would enquire how she progressed with her
+music, would listen to her report and observe: "Ah, I used to do a
+little fiddling myself." But he never put her proficiency to the test.
+
+Somehow, and long before the world came to the same conclusion, she had
+resolved that marriage was not for her. She adored babies, though they
+usually screamed at the sight of her, and she thought it would be
+delightful to have one of her own who would not scream; but apart from
+this vague sentiment, she accepted her fate without sensible regret.
+By watching and copying the mistresses of the few houses she visited
+she learned to play the hostess at Bayfield, and, as time brought
+confidence, played it with credit. She knew that people laughed at her,
+and that yet they liked her; their liking and their laughter puzzled
+her about equally. For the rest, she was proud of Bayfield and content,
+though one day much resembled another, to live all her life there,
+devoted to God and her garden. Visitors always praised her garden.
+
+Axcester lies on the western side and mostly at the foot of a low hill
+set accurately in the centre of a ring of hills slightly higher-the
+raised bottom of a saucer would be no bad simile. The old Roman road
+cuts straight across this rise, descends between the shops of the High
+Street, passes the church, crosses the Axe by a narrow bridge, and
+climbing again passes the iron gates of Bayfield House, a mile above
+the river. So straight is it that Dorothea could keep her brothers in
+view from the gates until they dismounted before their office door,
+losing sight of them for a minute or two only among the elms by the
+bridge. Her boudoir window commanded the same prospect; and every day
+as the London coach topped the hill, her maid Polly would run with
+news of it. The two would be watching, often before the guard's horn
+awoke the street and fetched the ostlers out in a hurry from the "Dogs
+Inn" stables with their relay of four horses. Miss Dorothea possessed
+a telescope, too; and if the coach were dressed with laurels and flags
+announcing a victory, mistress and maid would run to the gates and wave
+their handkerchiefs as it passed.
+
+Sometimes, too, Polly would announce a post-chaise, and the telescope
+decide whether the postboys wore the blue or the buff. Nor were these
+their only causes of excitement; for the great Bayfield elm, a rood
+below the gates and in full view of them, marked the westward boundary
+of the French prisoners on parole. Some of these were quite regular in
+their walks for instance, Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin and General
+Rochambeau, who came at three o'clock or thereabouts on Wednesdays and
+Saturdays, summer and winter. At six paces on the far side of the elm--
+such was their punctilio--they halted, took snuff, linked arms again
+and turned back. (Dorothea had entertained them both at Bayfield, and
+met them at dinner in one or two neighbouring houses.) On the same
+days, and on Mondays as well, old Jean Pierre Pichou, ex-boatswain of
+the _Didon_ frigate, would come along arm-in-arm with Julien Carales,
+alias Frap d'Abord, ex-_marechal des logis_--Pichou, with his wooden
+leg, and Frap d'Abord twisting a grey moustache and uttering a steady
+torrent of imprecation--or so it sounded. These could be counted on;
+but scores of others stopped and turned at the Bayfield elm, and Polly
+had names for them all. Moreover, on one memorable day Dorothea had
+watched one who did not halt precisely at the elm. A few paces beyond
+it, and on the side of the road facing the grounds, straggled an old
+orchard, out of which her brother Endymion had been missing, of late,
+a quantity of his favourite pippins--by name (but it may have been a
+local one) Somerset Warriors. The month was October, the time about
+half-past four, the light dusky. Yet Miss Dorothea, lingering by the
+gate, saw a young man pass the Bayfield elm and climb the hedge; and
+saw and heard him nail against an apple-tree overhanging the road, a
+board with white letters on a black ground. When it was fixed, the
+artist descended to the road and gazed up admiringly at his work. In
+the act of departing he turned, and suddenly stood still again. His
+face was toward the Bayfield gate. Dorothea could not tell if he saw
+her, but he remained thus, motionless, for almost a minute. Then he
+seemed to recollect himself and marched off briskly down the road.
+Early next morning she descended and read the inscription, which ran:
+"Restaurant pour les Aspirants."
+
+She said nothing about it, and soon after breakfast the board was
+removed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE ORANGE ROOM
+
+
+Some weeks later, on a bright and frosty morning in December, Dorothea
+rode into Axcester with her brothers. She was a good horsewoman and
+showed to advantage on horseback, when her slight figure took a grace
+of movement which made amends for her face. To-day the brisk air and a
+canter across the bridge at the foot of the hill had brought roses to
+her cheeks, and she looked almost pretty. General Rochambeau happened
+to pass down the street as the three drew rein before the Town House
+(so the Westcotes always called the Bank-office), and, pausing to help
+her dismount, paid her a very handsome compliment.
+
+Dorothea knew, of course, that Frenchmen were lavish of compliments,
+and had heard General Rochambeau pay them where she felt sure they were
+not deserved. Nevertheless she found this one pleasant--she had
+received so few--and laughed happily. It may have come from the
+freshness of the morning, but to-day her spirit sat light within her and
+expectant she could not say of what, yet it seemed that something good
+was going to happen.
+
+"I have a guess," said the old General, "that Miss Westcote and I are
+bound on the same errand. Her's cannot be to inspect dull bonds and
+ledgers, bills of exchange or rates of interest."
+
+He jerked his head towards the house, and Dorothea shook hers.
+
+"I am going to 'The Dogs,' General."
+
+"Eh?" He scented the jest and chuckled. "As you say, 'to the dogs'
+hein? Messieurs, I beg you to observe and take warning that your sister
+and I are going to the dogs together."
+
+He offered his arm to Dorothea. Her brothers had dismounted and handed
+their horses over to the ostler who waited by the porch daily to lead
+them to the inn stables.
+
+"I will stable Mercury myself," said she, addressing Endymion. She
+submitted her smallest plans to him for approval.
+
+"Do so," he answered. "After running through my letters, I will step
+down to the Orange Room and join you. I entrust her to you, General--
+the more confidently because you cannot take her far."
+
+He laughed and followed Narcissus through the porch. Dorothea saw the
+old General wince. She slipped an arm through Mercury's bridle-rein
+and picked up her skirt; the other arm she laid in her companion's.
+
+"You have not seen the Orange Room, Miss Dorothea?"
+
+"Not since the decorations began." She paused and uttered the thought
+uppermost in her mind. "You must forgive my brother; I am sorry he
+spoke as he did just now."
+
+"Then he is more than forgiven."
+
+"He did not consider."
+
+"Dear Mademoiselle, your brother is an excellent fellow, and not a bit
+more popular than he deserves to be. Of his kindness to us prisoners--
+I speak not of us privileged ones, but of our poorer brothers--I
+could name a thousand acts; and acts say more than words."
+
+Dorothea pursed her lips. "I am not sure. I think a woman would ask for
+words too."
+
+"Yes, that is so," he caught her up. "But don't you see that we
+prisoners are--forgive me--just like women? I mean, we have learned
+that we are weak. For a man that is no easy lesson, Mademoiselle. I
+myself learned it hardly. And seeing your brother admired by all, so
+strong and prosperous and confident, can I ask that he should feel as
+we who have forfeited these things?"
+
+Before she could find a reply he had harked back to the Orange Room.
+
+"You have not seen it since the decorations began? Then I have a mind
+to run and ask your brother to forbid your coming--to command you to
+wait until Wednesday. We are in a horrible mess, I warn you, and smell
+of turpentine most potently. But we shall be ready for the ball, and
+then--! It will be prodigious. You do not know that we have a genius
+at work on the painting?"
+
+"My brother tells me the designs are extraordinarily clever."
+
+"They are more than clever, you will allow. The artist I discovered
+myself--a young man named Charles Raoul. He comes from the South, a
+little below Avignon, and of good family--in some respects." The
+General paused and took snuff. "He enlisted at eighteen and has seen
+service; he tells me he was wounded at Austerlitz. Unhappily he was
+shipped, about two years ago, on board the _Thetis_ frigate, with a
+detachment and stores for Martinique. The _Thetis_ had scarcely left
+L'Orient before she fell in with one of your frigates, whose name
+escapes me; and here he is in Axcester. He has rich relatives, but for
+some reason or other they decline to support him; and yet he seems a
+gentleman. He picks up a few shillings by painting portraits; but you
+English are shy of sitting--I wonder why? And we--well, I suppose we
+prefer to wait till our faces grow happier."
+
+Dorothea had it on the tip of her tongue to ask how the General had
+discovered this genius; but the ring in his voice gave her pause.
+Twice in the course of their short walk he had shown feeling; and she
+wondered at it, having hitherto regarded him as a cynical old fellow
+with a wit which cracked himself and the world like two dry nuts for
+the jest of their shrivelled kernels. She did not, know that a kind
+word of hers had unlocked his heart; and before she could recall her
+question they had reached the stable-yard of  "The Dogs." And after
+stabling Mercury it was but a step across to the inn.
+
+The "Dogs Inn" took its name from two stone greyhounds beside its porch--
+supporters of the arms of that old family from which the Westcotes had
+purchased Bayfield; and the Orange Room from a tradition that William
+of Orange had spent a night there on his march from Torbay. There may
+have been truth in the tradition; the room at any rate preserved in it
+window-hangings of orange-yellow, and a deep fringe of the same hue
+festooning the musicians' gallery. While serving Axcester for ball,
+rout, and general assembly-room, it had been admittedly dismal--its
+slate-coloured walls scarred and patched with new plaster, and relieved
+only by a gigantic painting of the Royal Arms on panel in a blackened
+frame; its ceiling garnished with four pendants in plaster, like bride-
+cake ornaments inverted.
+
+To-day, as she stepped across the threshold, Dorothea hesitated between
+stopping her ears and rubbing her eyes. The place was a Babel.
+Frenchmen in white paper caps and stained linen blouses were laughing,
+plying their brushes, mixing paints, shifting ladders, and jabbering
+all the while at the pitch of their voices. For a moment the din
+bewildered her; the ferment had no more meaning, no more method, than
+a schoolboy's game. But her eyes, passing over the chaos of paint-pots,
+brushes, and step-ladders, told her the place had been transformed.
+The ceiling between the four pendants had become a blue heaven with
+filmy clouds, and Cupids scattering roses before a train of doves and
+a recumbent goddess, whom a little Italian, perched on a scaffolding
+and whistling shrilly, was varnishing for dear life. Around the walls--
+sky-blue also--trellises of vines and pink roses clambered around the
+old panels. The energy of the workmen had passed into their paintings,
+or perhaps Dorothea's head swam; at any rate, the cupids and doves
+seemed to be whirling across the ceiling, the vines, and roses mounting
+towards it, and pushing out shoots and tendrils while they climbed.
+
+But the panels themselves! They were nine in all: three down the long
+black wall, two narrower ones at the far end, four between the orange-
+curtained windows looking on the street. (The fourth wall had no panel,
+being covered, by the musicians' gallery and the pillars supporting
+it.) In each, framed by the vines and roses, glowed a scene of
+classical or pseudo-classical splendour; golden sunsets, pale yellow
+skies, landscapes cleverly imitated from recollections of Claude
+Lorraine, dotted with temples and small figures in flowing drapery,
+with here and there a glimpse of naked limbs. Here were Bacchus and
+Ariadne, with a company of dancing revellers; Apollo and Marsyas; the
+Rape of Helen; Dido welcoming Aeneas. . . . Dorothea (albeit she had
+often glanced into the copy of M. Lempriere's Classical Dictionary in
+her brother's library, and, besides, had picked up something of Greek
+and Roman mythology in helping Narcissus) did not at once discriminate
+the subjects of these panels, but her eyes rested on them with a
+pleasant sense of recognition, and were still resting on them when she
+heard General Rochambeau say:
+
+"Ah, there is my genius! You must let me present him, Mademoiselle.
+He will amuse you. Hi, there! Raoul!"
+
+A young man, standing amid a group of workmen and criticising one of
+the panels between the curtains, turned sharply. Almost before Dorothea
+was aware, he had doffed his paper cap and the General was introducing
+him.
+
+She recognised him at once. He was the young prisoner who had nailed
+the board against her brother's apple-tree.
+
+He bowed and began at once to apologise for the state of the room. He
+had expected no visitors before Wednesday. The General had played a
+surprise upon him. And Miss Westcote, alas! was a critic, especially
+of classical subjects.
+
+He had heard of her drawings for her brother's book.
+
+Dorothea blushed.
+
+"Indeed I am no artist. Please do not talk of those drawings. If you
+only knew how much I am ashamed of them. And besides, they were meant
+as diagrams to help the reader, not as illustrations. But these are
+beautiful."
+
+He turned with a pleasant laugh. She had already taken note of his
+voice, but his laugh was even more musical.
+
+"Daphne pursued by Apollo," he commenced, waving his hand towards the
+panel in face of her. "Be pleased to observe the lady sinking into the
+bush; an effect which the ingenious painter has stolen from no less a
+masterpiece than the Buisson Ardent' of Nicholas Froment."
+
+The General fumbled for the ribbon of his gold eye-glass. M. Raoul
+moved towards the next panel, and Dorothea followed him.
+
+"Perseus entering the Garden of the Hesperides."
+
+The painting, though slapdash, was astonishingly clever; and in this,
+as in other panels, no trace of the artist's hurry appeared in the
+reposeful design. Coiled about the foot of the tree, the dragon Ladon
+blinked an eye lazily at three maidens pacing hand in hand in the
+dance, over-hung with dark boughs and golden fruit. Behind them
+Perseus, with naked sword, halted in admiration, half issuing from a
+thicket over which stretched a distant bright line of sea and white
+cliff.
+
+"You like it?" he asked. "But it is not quite finished yet, and
+Mademoiselle, if she is frank, will say that it wants something."
+
+His voice held a challenge.
+
+"I am sure, sir, I could not guess, even if I possessed--"
+
+"A board, for example?"
+
+"A board?"
+
+She was completely puzzled.
+
+He glanced at her sideways, turned to the panel, and with his
+forefingers traced the outline of a square upon it, against the tree.
+
+"Restaurant pour les Aspirants," he announced.
+
+He said it quietly, over his shoulder. The sudden challenge, her sudden
+discovery that he knew, made Dorothea gasp. She had not the smallest
+notion how to answer him, or even what kind of answer he expected, and
+stood dumb, gazing at his back. A workman, passing, apologised for
+having brushed her skirt with the step-ladder he carried. She stammered
+some words of pardon. And just then, to her relief, her brother
+Endymion's voice rang out from the doorway:
+
+"Ah, there you are. Well, I declare!" He looked around him. "A
+Paradise, a perfect Paradise! Indeed, General, your nation has its
+revenge of us in the arts. You build a temple for us, and on Wednesday
+I hear you are to provide the music. Tum-tum, ta-ta-ta . . ." He hummed
+a few bars of Gluck's "Paride ed Elenna," and paused, with the gesture
+of one holding a fiddle, on the verge of a reminiscence. "There was a
+time--but I no longer compete. And to whom, General, are we indebted
+for this--ah--treat?"
+
+General Rochambeau indicated young Raoul, who stepped forward from the
+wall and answered, with a respectful inclination:
+
+"Well, M. le Commissaire, in the first place to Captain Seymour."
+
+The General bit his moustache; Endymion frowned. The answer merely
+puzzled Dorothea, who did not know that Seymour was the name of the
+British officer to whom the _Thetis_ had struck her colours.
+
+"Moreover," the young man went on imperturbably, "we but repay our
+debt to M. le Commissaire--for the entertainment he affords us."
+
+Dorothea looked up sharply now, even anxiously; but her brother took
+the shot, if shot it were, for a compliment. He put the awkward idiom
+aside with a gracious wave of the hand. His brow cleared.
+
+"But we must do something for these poor fellows," he announced,--
+sweeping all the work-men in a gaze; "in mere gratitude we must. A
+stall, now, at the end of the room under the gallery, with one or two
+salesmen whom you must recommend to me, General. We might dispose of
+quite a number of their small carvings and _articles de Paris_, with
+which the market among the townspeople is decidedly overstocked. The
+company on Wednesday will be less familiar with them: they will serve
+as mementoes, and the prices, I daresay, will not be too closely
+considered."
+
+"Sir, I beg of you--" General Rochambeau expostulated.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"They have given their labour--such as it is--in pure gratitude for
+the kindness shown to them by all in Axcester. That has been the whole
+meaning of our small enterprise," the old gentleman persisted.
+
+"Still, I don't suppose they'll object if it brings a little beef to
+their _ragouts_. Say no more, say no more. What have we here? Eh?
+'Bacchus and Ariadne'? I am rusty in my classics, but Bacchus,
+Dorothea! This will please Narcissus. We have in our house, sir,"--
+here he addressed Raoul,--"a Roman pavement entirely--ah--concerned
+with that personage. It is, I believe, unique. One of these days I must
+give you a permit to visit Bayfield and inspect it, with my brother for
+_cicerone_. It will repay you--"
+
+"It will more than repay me," the young man interposed, with his gaze
+demurely bent on the wall.
+
+"I should have said, it will repay your inspection. You must jog my
+memory."
+
+It was clear Raoul had a reply on his tongue. But he glanced at
+Dorothea, read her expression, and, turning to her brother, bowed
+again. Her first feeling was of gratitude. A moment later she blamed
+herself for having asked his forbearance by a look, and him for his
+confidence in seeking that look. His eyes, during the moment they
+encountered hers, had said, "We under-stand one another." He had no
+right to assume so much, and yet she had not denied it.
+
+Endymion Westcote meanwhile had picked up a small book which lay face
+downward on one of the step-ladders.
+
+"So here is the source of your inspiration? said he. An _Ovid_? How it
+brings up old school-days At Winchester--old swishings, too, General,
+hey?" He held the book open and studied the Ariadne on the wall.
+
+"The source of my inspiration indeed, M. le Commissaire! But you will
+not find Ariadne in that text, which contains only the _Tristia_."
+
+"Ah, but, I told you my classics were a bit rusty," replied the
+Commissary. He made the round of the walls and commended, in his breezy
+way, each separate panel. "You must take my criticisms for what they
+are worth, M. Raoul. But my grandmother was a Frenchwoman, and that
+gives me a kind of--sympathy, shall we say? Moreover, I know what I
+like."
+
+Dorothea, accustomed to regard her brother as a demigod, caught herself
+blushing for him. She was angry with herself. She caught M. Raoul's
+murmur, "Heaven distributes to us our talents, Monsieur," and was angry
+with him, understanding and deprecating the raillery beneath his
+perfectly correct attitude. He kept this attitude to the end. When the
+time came for parting, he bent over her hand and whispered again:
+
+"But it was kind of Mademoiselle not to report me."
+
+She heard. It set up a secret understanding between them, which she
+resented. There was nothing to say, again; yet she had found no way
+of rebuking him, she was angry with herself all the way home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL
+
+
+Axcester's December Ball was a social event of importance in South
+Somerset. At once formal and familiar--familiar, since nine-tenths of
+the company dwelt close enough together to be on visiting terms--it
+nicely preluded the domestic festivities of Christmas, and the more
+public ones which began with the New Year and culminated in the great
+County Balls at Taunton and Bath. Nor were the families around Axcester
+jaded with dancing, as those in the neighbourhood of Bath, for example;
+but discussed dresses and the prospects of the Ball for some weeks
+beforehand, and, when the day came, ordered out the chariot or barouche
+in defiance of any ordinary weather.
+
+The weather since Dorothea's visit to the Orange Room had included a
+frost, a fall of snow with a partial thaw, and a second and much
+severer frost; and by Wednesday afternoon the hill below Bayfield wore
+a hard and slippery glaze. Endymion, however, had seen to the roughing
+of the horses. Thin powdery snow began to fall as the Bayfield barouche
+rolled past the gates into the high road; and Narcissus, who considered
+himself a weather-prophet, foretold a thaw before morning. Unless the
+weather grew worse, the party would drive back to Bayfield; but the old
+caretaker in the Town House had orders to light fires there and prepare
+the bedrooms, and on the chance of being detained. Dorothea had brought
+her maid Polly.
+
+In spite of her previous visit, the Orange Room gave her a shock of
+delight and wonder. The litter had vanished, the hangings were in
+place; fresh orange-coloured curtains divided the dancing-floor from
+the recess beneath the gallery, and this had been furnished as a
+withdrawing-room, with rugs, settees, groups of green foliage plants,
+and candles, the light of which shone through shades of yellow paper.
+The prisoners, too, had adorned with varicoloured paperwork the
+candelabra, girandoles and mirrors which drew twinkles from the long
+waxed floor, and softened whatever might have been garish in the
+decorations. Certainly the panels took a new beauty, a luminous
+delicacy, in their artificial rays; and Dorothea, when, after much
+greeting and hand-shaking, she joined one of the groups inspecting
+them, felt a sort of proprietary pleasure in the praises she heard.
+
+Had she known it, she too was looking her best tonight--in an old-
+maidish fashion, be it understood. She wore a gown of ashen-grey
+muslin, edged with swansdown, and tied with sash and shoulder-knots
+of a flame-hued ribbon which had taken her fancy at Bath in the autumn.
+Her sandal-shoes, stockings, gloves, cap--she had worn caps for six
+or seven years now,--even her fan, were of the same ash-coloured grey.
+
+Dorothea knew how to dress. She also knew how to dance. The music made
+her heart beat faster, and she never entered a ball-room without a
+sense of happy expectancy. Poor lady! she never left but she carried
+home heart-sickness, weariness, and a discontent of which she purged
+her soul, on her knees, before lying down to sleep. She had a contrite
+spirit; she knew that her lot was a fortunate one; but she envied her
+maid Polly her good looks at times. With Polly's face, she might have
+dancing to her heart's content. Usually she dropped some tears on her
+pillow after a night's gaiety.
+
+At Bath, at Taunton, at Axcester, it had always been the same, and with
+time she had learnt to set her hopes low and steel her heart early to
+their inevitable disappointment. So tonight she took her seat against
+the wall and watched while the first three _contre-danses_ went by
+without bringing her a partner. For the fourth--the "Soldier's joy"--
+she was claimed by an awkward schoolboy, home for the holidays; whether
+out of duty or obeying the law of Nature by which shy youths are
+attracted to middle-aged partners, she could not tell, nor did she ask
+herself, but danced the dance and enjoyed it more than her cavalier
+was ever likely to guess. Such a chance had, before now, been looked
+back upon as the one bright spot in a long evening's experience.
+Dorothea loved all schoolboys for the kindness shown to her by these
+few.
+
+She went back to her seat, hard by a group to which Endymion was
+discoursing at large. Endymion's was a mellow voice, of rich compass,
+and he had a knack of compelling the attention of all persons within
+range. He preferred this to addressing anyone in particular, and his
+eye sought and found, and gathered by instinct, the last loiterer
+without the charmed circle.
+
+"Yes," he was saying, "it is tasteful, and something more. It
+illustrates, as you well say, the better side of our excitable
+neighbours across the Channel. Setting patriotism apart and regarding
+the question merely in its--ah--philosophical aspect, it has often
+occurred to me to wonder how a nation so expert in the arts of life,
+so--how shall I put it?--"
+
+"Natty," suggested one of his hearers; but he waved the word aside.
+
+"--of such lightness of touch, as I might describe it,--I say, it has
+often occurred to me to wonder how such a nation could so far mistake
+its destiny and the designs of Providence (inscrutable though they be)
+as to embark on a career of foreign conquest which can only--ah--
+have one end."
+
+"Come to grief," put in Lady Bateson, a dowager in a crimson cap with
+military feathers. She was supposed to cherish a hopeless passion for
+Endymion. Also, she was supposed to be acting as Dorothea's chaperon
+tonight; but having with little exertion found partners for a niece of
+her own, a sprightly young lady on a visit from Bath, felt that she
+deserved to relax her mind in a little intellectual talk. Endymion
+accepted her remark with magnificent tolerance.
+
+"Precisely." He inclined towards her. "You have hit it precisely."
+
+Dorothea stole a glance at her brother. Military and hunt uniforms were
+_de rigueur_ at these Axcester balls, and a Major of Yeomanry more
+splendid than Endymion Westcote it would have been hard to find in
+England. He stood with a hand negligently resting on his left hip--
+the word hip,--his right foot advanced, the toe of his polished boot
+tapping the floor. His smile, indulgent as it hovered over Lady
+Bateson, descended to this protruded leg and became complacent, as it
+had a right to be.
+
+"Well, I've always said so from the start," Lady Bateson announced,
+"and now I'm sure of it. I don't mind Frenchmen as Frenchmen; but what
+I say is, let them stick to their fal-de-rals."
+
+"That is the side of them which, in my somewhat responsible position,
+I endeavour to humour. You see the result." He swept his hand towards
+the painted panels. "One thing I must say, in justice to my charges,
+I find them docile."
+
+Dorothea had confidence in her brother's tact and his unerring eye for
+his audience. Yet she looked about her nervously, to make sure that of
+the few prisoners selected for invitation to the ball, none was within
+earshot. The Vicomte de Tocqueville, a stoical young patrician, had
+chosen a partner for the next dance, and was leading her out with that
+air of vacuity with which he revenged himself upon the passing hour of
+misfortune. "Go on," it seemed to say, "but permit me to remind you
+that, so far as I am concerned, you do not exist." Old General
+Rochambeau and old Rear-Admiral de Wailly-Duchemin, in worn but
+carefully-brushed regimentals, patrolled the far end of the room
+arm-in-arm. The Admiral seemed in an ill humour; and this was nothing
+new, he grumbled at everything. But the General's demeanour, as he
+trotted up and down beside his friend (doubtless doing his best to
+pacify him), betrayed an unwonted agitation. It occurred to Dorothea
+that he had not yet greeted her and paid his usual compliment.
+
+"Miss Westcote is not dancing tonight?"
+
+The voice was at her elbow, and she looked up with a start--to meet
+the gaze of M. Raoul.
+
+"Excuse me"--she wished to explain why she had been startled--"I did
+not expect--"
+
+"To see me here! It appears that they have given the scene-painter a
+free ticket, and I assume that it carries permission to dance, provided
+he does not display in an unseemly manner the patch in the rear of his
+best tunic."
+
+He turned his head in a serio-comic effort to stare down his back.
+Dorothea admitted to herself that he made a decidedly handsome fellow
+in his blue uniform with red facings and corded epaulettes; nor does a
+uniform look any the worse for having seen a moderate amount of service.
+
+"But Mademoiselle was in a--what do you call it?--a brown study, which
+I interrupted."
+
+"I was wondering why General Rochambeau had, not yet come to speak with
+me."
+
+"I can account for it, perhaps; but first you must answer my question,
+Mademoiselle. Are you not dancing tonight?"
+
+"That will depend, sir, on whether I am asked or no."
+
+She said it almost archly, on the moment's impulse; and, the words out,
+felt that they were over-bold. But she did not regret them when her
+eyes met his. He was offering his arm, and she found herself joining in
+his laugh--a happy, confidential little laugh. Dorothea cast a nervous
+glance towards her brother, but Endymion's back was turned. She saw
+that her partner noted the look, and half-defiantly she nodded towards
+the gallery as the French musicians struck into a jolly jigging quick-
+step with a crash at every third bar.
+
+"_Mais cela me rend folle_," she murmured.
+
+"Do you know the air? It's the 'Bridge of Lodi,' and we are to dance
+'Britannia's Triumph' to it. Come, Mademoiselle, since the 'Triumph'
+is nicely mixed, let your captive lead you."
+
+Those were days of reels, poussettes, ladies' chains, and figure
+dancing; honest heel-and-toe, hopping and twisting, hands across and
+down the middle--an art contemned now, worse than neglected, insulted
+by the vulgar caricature of "kitchen lancers"; but then seriously
+practised, delighting the eye, bringing blood to the dancers' cheeks.
+For five minutes and more Dorothea was entirely happy. M. Raoul--
+himself no mean performer--tasted, after his first surprise, something
+of the joy of discovery. Who could have guessed that this quiet
+spinster, who, as a rule, held herself and walked so awkwardly, would
+prove the best partner in the room? He had not the least doubt of it.
+Others danced with more abandonment, with more exuberant vigour--
+"romped" was his criticism--but none with such _elan_ perfectly
+restrained, covering precision with grace. Hands across, cast off and
+wheel; as their fingers met again he felt the tense nerves, the throb
+of the pulse beneath the glove. Her lips were parted, her eyes and
+whole face animated. She was not thinking of him, or of anyone; only
+of the swing and beat of the music, the sway of life and colour, her
+own body swaying to it, enslaved to the moment and answering no other
+call.
+
+"I understand why they call it the Triumph," he murmured, as he led
+her back to her seat. She turned her eyes on him as one coming out of
+a dream.
+
+"I have never enjoyed a dance so much in my life," she said seriously.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"It must have been an inspiration--" he began, and checked himself,
+with a glance over his shoulder at the painted panel behind them.
+
+"You were saying--" She looked up after a moment.
+
+"Nothing. Listen to the Ting-tang!"
+
+He drew aside one of the orange curtains, and Dorothea heard the note
+of a bell clanging in a distant street. "Time for all good prisoners
+to be in bed, and Heaven temper the wind to the thin blanket! It is
+snowing--snowing furiously."
+
+"Do they suffer much in these winters?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"They die sometimes, though your brother does his best to prevent it.
+It promises to be a hard season for them."
+
+"I wish I could help; but Endymion--my brother does not approve of
+ladies mixing themselves up in these affairs."
+
+"Yet he has carried off half-a-dozen to the supper-room, where at a
+side table three of my compatriots are vending knick-knacks, to add
+a little beef to their _ragouts_."
+
+"Is it that which has annoyed General Rochambeau?"
+
+She had recognised the phrase, but let it pass.
+
+"It is."
+
+She understood. For some reason her brain was unusually clear tonight.
+At any other time she would have defended, or at least excused, her
+brother. She knew it, and found time to wonder at her new practicality
+as she answered:
+
+"I must think of some way to help."
+
+She saw his brow clear--saw that had risen in his esteem--and was
+glad.
+
+"To you, Mademoiselle, we shall find it easy to be grateful."
+
+"By helping them," she explained, "I may also be helping my brother.
+You do not understand him as I do, and you sharpen your wit upon him,"
+
+"Be assured it does not hurt him, Mademoiselle."
+
+"No, but it hurts _me_."
+
+He bowed gravely.
+
+"It shall not hurt you, again. Whom you love, you shall protect."
+
+"Ah! M. Raoul!" Endymion Westcote hailed him from the doorway and
+crossed the room with Narcissus in tow. "My brother is interested in
+your panel of Bacchus and Ariadne; he will be glad to discuss it with
+you. Br-r-r-!"--he shivered--"I have been down to the door, and it
+is snowing viciously. Some of our friends will hardly find their homes
+tonight. I hope, by the way, you have brought a great-coat?"
+
+Raoul ignored the question.
+
+"I fear, sir, your learning will discover half-a-dozen mistakes," said
+he, addressing Narcissus and leading the way towards the panel.
+
+"But whilst I think of it," Endymion persisted, "I saw half-a-dozen old
+baize chair-covers behind the cloak-room door. Don't hesitate to take
+one; you can return it to-morrow or next day." Dorothea being his only
+audience, he beamed a look on her which said: "They come to us in a
+hurry, these prisoners--no time to collect a wardrobe; but I think of
+these little things."
+
+"Rest assured, sir, I will turn up my coat-collar," said Raoul; and
+Dorothea could see him, a moment later, shaking his head good-
+naturedly, though the Commissary still protested.
+
+Dorothea, left to herself, watched them examining and discussing the
+panel of Bacchus and Ariadne. The orchestra started another _contre-
+danse_, but no partner approached to claim her. The dance began. It
+was the "Dashing White Sergeant," and one exuberant couple threatened
+to tread upon her toes. She stood up and, for lack of anything better
+to do, began to study the panel behind her.
+
+A moment later her hand went up to her throat.
+
+It was the panel on which M. Raoul had sketched an imaginary board
+with his thumb-nail--the Garden of the Hesperides. But the Perseus
+was different; he wore the face of M. Raoul himself. And beneath the
+throat of the nymph on the right, half concealed in the folds about
+her bosom, hung a locket--a small enamelled heart, edged with
+brilliants. Just such a trinket--a brooch--had pinned the collar of
+her close habit three days before, when she and M. Raoul had stood
+together discussing the panel. It was a legacy from her mother.
+
+Hastily she put out a hand and drew the edge of the orange curtain
+over nymph and locket.
+
+Soon after supper Endymion Westcote informed his sister that it was
+hopeless to think of returning to Bayfield. The barouche would convey
+her back to the Town House; but already the snow lay a foot and a half
+deep, and was still falling. He himself, after packing her off with
+Narcissus, would remain and attend to the comfort of the guests, many
+of whom must bivouac at "The Dogs" for the night as best they could.
+
+At midnight, or a little later, the barouche was announced. It drew up
+close to the porch, axle-deep in snow. Upstairs the orchestra was
+sawing out the strains of "Major Malley's Reel," as Endymion lifted
+his sister in and slammed the door upon her and Narcissus. The noise
+prevented his hearing a sash-window lifted, immediately above the porch.
+
+"Right away!"
+
+The inn-servant who had accompanied the Westcotes turned back to trim a
+candle flaring in the draughty passage. But it so happened that, in
+starting, the coachman entangled his off-rein in the trace-buckle.
+Endymion, in his polished hessians, ran round to unhitch it.
+
+On the window-sill above, two deft hands quickly scooped up and moulded
+a snowball.
+
+"He should turn up his coat-collar, the pig! _V'Ian pour le
+Commissaire!_"
+
+Endymion Westcote did not hear the voice; but as the vehicle rolled
+heavily forward, out of the darkness a snowball struck him accurately
+on the nape of the neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ENCOUNTER BETWEEN A HIGH HORSE AND A HOBBY
+
+
+"Your chocolate will be getting cold, Miss."
+
+Dorothea, refreshed with sleep but still pleasantly tired, lay in bed
+watching Polly as she relaid and lit the fire in the massive Georgian
+grate. These occasions found the service in the Town House short-
+handed, and the girl (a cheerful body, with no airs) turned to and
+took her share in the extra work.
+
+"Have they sent for Mudge?" (Mudge was the Bayfield butler.)
+
+"Lord, no, Miss! Small chance of getting to Mudge, or of Mudge getting
+to us. Why, the snow is half-way up the front door!"
+
+Bed was deliciously warm, and the air in the room nipping, as Dorothea
+found when she stretched out her hand for the cup.
+
+"I always like waking in this room. It gives one a sort of betwixt and
+between feeling--between being at home and on a visit. To be snowed-up
+makes it quite an adventure."
+
+"Pretty adventure for the gentry at 'The Dogs'! Tom Ryder, the dairyman
+there, managed to struggle across just now with the milk, and he says
+that a score of them couldn't get beds in the town for love or money.
+The rest kept it up till four in the morning, and now they're sleeping
+in their fine dresses round the fire in the Orange Room."
+
+Dorothea laughed. "They were caught like this just eighteen years ago--
+let me see--yes, just eighteen. I remember, because it was my second
+ball. But then there were no prisoners filling up the lodgings, so
+everyone found a room."
+
+"Some of the French gentlemen gave up their lodgings last night, and
+are down at 'The Dogs' now keeping themselves warm. There's that old
+Admiral, for one. I'm sure he never ought to be out of bed, with his
+rheumatics. It's enough to give him his death. Sam Zeally says that
+General Rochambeau is looking after him, as tender as a mother with a
+babby."
+
+Polly mimicked Sam's pronunciation, and laughed. She was Somerset-born
+herself, but had seen service in Bath.
+
+"Where is Mr. Endymion?"
+
+"I heard him let himself in just as I was going upstairs after
+undressing you. That would be about one, or a quarter past. But he was
+up again at six, called for Mrs. Morrish to heat his shaving water,
+and had a cup of coffee in his room. He and Mr. Narcissus have gone out
+to see the roll called, and get the volunteers and prisoners to clear
+the streets. Leastways, that's what Mr. Narcissus is doing. I heard
+Mr. Endymion say something about riding off to see what the roads are
+like."
+
+By this time the fire was lit and crackling. Polly loitered awhile,
+arranging the cinders. She had given up asking with whom her mistress
+had danced; but Dorothea usually described the more striking gowns,
+and how this or that lady had worn her hair.
+
+"Tired, Miss?"
+
+"Well, yes, Polly; a little, but not uncomfortably. I danced several
+times last night."
+
+Polly pursed her mouth into an O; but her face was turned to the fire,
+and Dorothea did not see it.
+
+"I hope, Miss, you'll tell me about it later on. But Mrs. Morrish is
+downstairs declaring that no hen will lay an egg in this weather, to
+have it snowed up the next moment. 'Not that I blame mun,' she says,
+'for I wouldn't do it myself,'"--here Polly giggled. "What to find
+for breakfast she don't know, and never will until I go and help her."
+
+Polly departed, leaving her mistress cosy in bed and strangely
+reluctant to rise and part company with her waking thoughts.
+
+Yes; Dorothea had danced twice again with M. Raoul since her discovery
+of his boldness. He had seen her draw the orange curtain over his
+offence, had sought her again and apologised for, it. He had done it
+(he had pleaded) on a sudden impulse--to be a reminder of one kind
+glance which had brightened his exile. 'No one but she was in the
+least likely to recognise the trinket; in any case he would paint it
+out at the first opportunity. And Dorothea had forgiven him. She
+herself had a great capacity for gratitude, and understood the feeling
+far too thoroughly to believe for an instant that M. Raoul could be
+mightily grateful for anything she had said or done. No; whatever the
+feeling which impels a young gentleman to secrete some little private
+reminder of its object, it is not gratitude; and Dorothea rejoiced
+inwardly that it was not. But what then was it? Some attraction of
+sympathy, no doubt. To find herself attractive in any way was a new
+experience and delightful. She had forgiven him on the spot. And
+afterwards they had danced twice together, and he had praised her
+dancing. Also, he had said something about a pretty foot--but
+Frenchmen must always be complimenting.
+
+A noise in the street interrupted her thoughts, and reminded her that
+she must not be dawdling longer in bed. She shut her teeth, made a
+leap for it, and, running to the window, peered over the blind. Some
+score of the prisoners in a gang were clearing the pavement with
+shovels and brushes, laughing and chattering all the while, and
+breaking off to pelt each other with snowballs. She had discussed
+these poor fellows with M. Raoul last night. Could she not in some way
+add to their comfort, or their pleasure? He had dwelt most upon their
+mental weariness, especially on Sundays. Of material discomfort they
+never complained, but they dreaded Sundays worse than they dreaded
+cold weather. Any small distraction now--.
+
+The train of her recollections came to a sudden halt, before a tall
+cheval-glass standing at an obtuse angle to the fireplace and on the
+edge of its broad hearthrug. She had been moving aimlessly from the
+window to the wardrobe in which Polly had folded and laid away her
+last night's finery, and from the wardrobe back to a long sofa at the
+bed's foot. And now she found herself standing before the glass and
+holding her nightgown high enough to display a foot and ankle on which
+she had slipped an ash-coloured stocking and shoe. A tide of red
+flooded her neck and face.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Mrs. Morrish had laid the meal in the ground-floor room, once a
+library, but now used as a bank-parlour--yet still preserving the d
+ignified aspect of a private room: for banking (as the Westcote clients
+were reminded by several sporting prints and a bust of the Medicean
+Venus) was in those days of scarce money a branch of philanthropy
+rather than of trade. The good caretaker was in tears over the
+breakfast. "And I'm sure, Miss, I don't know what's to be done unless
+you can eat bacon."
+
+"Which I can," Dorothea assured her.
+
+"Well, Miss, I am sure I envy you; for ever since that poor French
+Captain Fioupi hanged himself from Mary Odling's bacon-rack, two years
+ago the first of this very next month, I haven't been able to look at
+a bit."
+
+"Poor gentleman! Why did he do it?"
+
+"The Lord knows, Miss. But they said it was home-sickness."
+
+From the street came the voices of Captain Fioupi's compatriots, merry
+at their work. Dorothea had scarcely begun breakfast before her
+brothers entered, and she had to pour out tea for them. Narcissus took
+his seat at once. Endymion stood stamping his feet and warming his
+hands by the fire. He bent and with his finger flicked out a crust of
+snow from between his breeches and the tops of his riding-boots. It
+fell on the hearthstone and sputtered.
+
+"The roads," he announced, are not very bad beyond the bridge. That is
+the worst spot, and I have sent down a gang to clear it. Our guests
+ought to be able to depart before noon, though I won't answer for the
+road Yeovil Way. One carrier--Allworthy--has come through to the
+bridge, but says he passed Solomon's van in a drift about four miles
+back, this side of the Cheriton oak. He reports Bayfield Hill safe
+enough; but that I discovered for myself."
+
+"It seems quite a treat for them," Dorothea remarked.
+
+His eyebrows went up.
+
+"The guests, do you mean?"
+
+He turned to the fire and picked up the tongs.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"No, I mean the prisoners; I was listening to their voices. Just now
+they were throwing snowballs."
+
+Endymion dropped the tongs with a clatter; picked them up, set them in
+place, and faced the room again with a flush which might have come
+from stooping over the fire.
+
+"Come to breakfast, dear," said Dorothea, busy with the tea-urn. "I
+have a small plan I want your permission for, and your help. It is
+about the prisoners. General Rochambeau and M. Raoul--"
+
+"Are doubtless prepared to teach me my business," snapped Endymion,
+who seemed in bad humour this morning.
+
+"No--but listen, dear! They praise you warmly. For whom but my brother
+would these poor men have worked as they did upon the Orange Room--
+and all to show their gratitude? But it appears the worst part of
+captivity is its tedium and the way it depresses the mind; one sees
+that it must be. They dread Sundays most of all. And I said I would
+speak to you, and if any way could be found--"
+
+"My dear Dorothea," Endymion slipped his hands beneath his coat-tails
+and stood astraddle, "I have not often to request you, to mind your
+own affairs; but really when it comes to making a promise in my name--"
+
+"Not a promise."
+
+"May I ask you if you seriously propose to familiarise Axcester with
+all the orgies of a Continental Sabbath? Already the prisoners spend
+Sunday in playing chess, draughts, cards, dominoes; practices which I
+connive at, only insisting that they are kept out of sight, but from
+which I endeavour to wean them--those at least who have a taste for
+music--by encouraging them to, take part in our Church services."
+
+"But I have heard you regret, dear, that only the least respectable
+fall in with this. The rest, being strict Roman Catholics, think it
+wrong."
+
+"Are you quite sure last night did, not over-tire you? You are
+certainly disposed to be argumentative this morning."
+
+"I think," suggested Narcissus, buttering his toast carefully, "you
+might at least hear what Dorothea has to say."
+
+"Oh, certainly! Indeed, if she has been committing me to her projects,
+I have a right to know the worst."
+
+"I haven't committed you--I only said I would ask your advice," poor
+Dorothea stammered. "And I have no project." She caught Narcissus' eye,
+and went on a little more firmly: "Only I thought, perhaps, that if
+you extended their walks a little on Sundays--they are scrupulous in
+keeping their _parole_. And, once in a way, we might entertain them at
+Bayfield--late in the afternoon, when you have finished your Sunday
+nap. Narcissus might show them the pavement and tell them about
+Vespasian--not a regular lecture, it being Sunday, but an informal
+talk, with tea afterwards. And in the evening, perhaps, they might
+meet in the Orange Room for some sacred music--it need not be called
+a 'concert'--" Dorothea stopped short, amazed at her own inventiveness.
+
+"H'm. I envy your simplicity, my dear soul, in believing that the--
+ah--alleged _ennui_ of these men can he cured by a talk about
+Vespasian. But when you go on to talk of sacred music, I must be
+permitted to remind you that a concert is none the less a concert for
+being called by another name. We Britons do not usually allow names to
+disguise facts. A concert--call it even a 'sacred' concert--in the
+Orange Room, amid those distinctly--ah--pagan adornments! I can
+scarcely even term it the thin end of the wedge, so clearly can I see
+it paving the way for other questionable indulgences. I don't doubt
+your good intentions, Dorothea, but you cannot, as a woman, be expected
+to understand how easily the best intentions may convert Axcester, with
+its French community, into a veritable hot-bed of vice. And, by-the-by,
+you might tell Morrish I shall want the horse again in half-an-hour's
+time."
+
+Dorothea left the room on her errand. As she closed the door Narcissus
+looked up from his toast.
+
+"Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!" said he.
+
+"I--ah--beg your pardon?"
+
+Endymion, in the act of seating himself at table, paused to stare.
+
+"Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!" repeated Narcissus. "You needn't have
+snapped Dorothea's head off. I thought her suggestions extremely
+sensible."
+
+"The concert, for instance?"
+
+"Yes! you don't make sacred music irreverent by calling it a concert.
+Moreover, I really don't see why, as intelligent men, they should not
+find Vespasian interesting. His career in many respects resembled the
+Corsican's."
+
+Endymion smiled at his plate.
+
+"Well, well, we will talk about it later on," said he.
+
+He never quarrelled with Narcissus, whose foibles amused him, but for
+whose slow judgment he had a more than brotherly respect.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The Westcotes, though (at due intervals and with due notice given) they
+entertained as handsomely as the Lord Lieutenant himself, were not a
+household to be bounced (so to speak) into promiscuous or extemporised
+hospitality. For an ordinary dinner-party, Dorothea would pen the
+invitations three weeks ahead, Endymion devote an hour to selecting his
+guests, and Narcissus spend a morning in the Bayfield cellar, which he
+supervised and in which he took a just pride. And so well was this
+inelasticity recognised, so clearly was it understood that by no
+circumstances could Endymion Westcote permit himself to be upset, that
+none of the snowed-up company at "The Dogs" thought a bit the worse of
+him for having gone home and left them to shift as best they could.
+
+Dorothea, when at about half-past ten she put on her bonnet and cloak
+and stepped down to visit them--the prisoners having by that time
+cleared the pavement--found herself surrounded by a crew humorously
+apologetic for their toilettes, profoundly envious of her better luck,
+but on excellent terms with one another and the younger ones, at any
+rate, who had borne the worst of the discomfort--enjoying the
+adventure thoroughly.
+
+"But the life and soul of it all was that M. Raoul," confessed Lady
+Bateson's niece.
+
+"By George!" echoed the schoolboy who had danced the "Soldier's Joy"
+with Dorothea, "I wouldn't have believed it of a Frenchy."
+
+For some reason Dorothea was not too well pleased.
+
+"But I do not see M. Raoul."
+
+"Oh, he's down by the bridge, helping the relief party. One would guess
+him worn out. He ran from lodging to lodging, turning the occupants out
+of their beds and routing about for fresh linen. They say he even
+carried old Mrs. Kekewich pick-a-back through the snow."
+
+"And tucked her in bed," added the schoolboy. "And then he came back,
+wet almost to the waist, and danced."
+
+He looked roguishly at Lady Bateson's niece, and the pair exploded in
+laughter.
+
+They ran off as General Rochambeau, jaded and unshaven, approached and
+saluted Dorothea.
+
+"Until Miss Westcote appeared, we held our own against the face of day.
+Now, alas, the conspiracy can no longer be kept up."
+
+"You had no compliment for me last night, General."
+
+"Forgive me, Mademoiselle." He lowered his voice and spoke earnestly.
+"I have a genuine one for you to-day--I compliment your heart. M. Raoul
+has told me of your interest in our poor compatriots, and what you
+intend--"
+
+"I fear I can do little," Dorothea interrupted, mindful of her late
+encounter and (as she believed) defeat. "By all accounts, M. Raoul
+appears to have made himself agreeable to all," she added.
+
+The old gentleman chuckled and took snuff.
+
+"He loves an audience. At about four in the morning, when all the
+elders were in bed--(pardon me, Mademoiselle, if I claim to reckon
+myself among _les jeunes_; my poor back tells me at what cost)--at
+about four in the morning the young lady who has just left you spoke
+of a new dance she had seen performed this season at Bath. Well, it
+appears that M. Raoul had also seen it a--valtz they called it, or
+some such name. Whereupon nothing would do but they must dance it
+together. Such a dance, Mademoiselle! Roll, roll--round and round--
+roll, roll--but _perpendicularly_, you understand. By-and-by the
+others began to copy them, and someone asked M. Raoul where he had
+found this accomplishment. 'Oh, in my travels,' says he, and points
+to one of the panels; and there, if you will believe me, the fellow
+had actually painted himself as Perseus in the Garden of the
+Hesperides."
+
+Poor Dorothea glanced towards the panel.
+
+"Ah, you remember it! But he must have painted in the face after
+showing it to us the other day, or I should have recognised it at the
+time. You must come and see it; really an excellent portrait!"
+
+He led her towards it. The orange curtain no longer hid the third
+nymph. But the blood which had left Dorothea's face rushed back as
+she saw that the trinket had been roughly erased.
+
+"It was quite a _coup_, but M. Raoul loves an audience."
+
+Shortly before noon the road by the bridge was reported to be clear.
+Carriages were announced, and the guests shook hands and were rolled
+away--the elder glum, their juniors in boisterous spirits. As each
+carriage passed the bridge, where M. Raoul stood among the workmen,
+handkerchiefs fluttered out, and he lifted his hat gaily in response.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+BEGINS WITH ANCIENT HISTORY AND ENDS WITH AN OLD STORY
+
+
+"_Ubicunque vicit Romanus habitat_,--Where the Roman conquered he
+settled--and it is from his settlements that to-day we deduce his
+conquests. Of Vespasian and his second legion the jejune page of
+Suetonius records neither where they landed nor at what limit their
+victorious eagles were stayed. Yet will the patient investigator trace
+their footprints across many a familiar landscape of rural England,
+led by the blurred imperishable impress he has learned to recognise.
+The invading host sweeps forward, and is gone; but behind it the
+homestead arises and smiles upon the devastated fields, arms yield to
+the implements and habiliments of peace, and the colonist, who
+supersedes the legionary, in time furnishes the sole evidence of his
+feverish and ensanguined transit . . ."
+
+Narcissus was enjoying himself amazingly. His audience endured him
+because the experience was new, and their ears caught the rattle of
+tea-cups in the adjoining library.
+
+Dorothea sat counting her guests, and assuring herself that the number
+of teacups would suffice. She had heard the lecture many times before,
+and with repetition its sonorous periods had lost hold upon her,
+although her brother had been at pains to model them upon Gibbon.
+
+But the scene impressed her sharply, and she carried away a very
+lively picture of it. The old Roman villa had been built about a
+hollow square open to the sky, and this square now formed the great
+hall of Bayfield. Deep galleries of two stories surrounded it, in
+place of the old colonnaded walk. Out of these opened the principal
+rooms of the house, and above them, upon a circular lantern of clear
+glass, was arched a painted dome. Sheathed on the outside with green
+weather-tinted copper, and surmounted by a gilt ball, this dome (which
+could be seen from the Axcester High Street when winter stripped the
+Bayfield elms) gave the building something of the appearance of an
+observatory.
+
+On the north side of the hall a broad staircase descended from the
+gallery to the tiled floor, in the midst of which a fountain played
+beneath a cupola supported by slender columns. On the west the recess
+beneath the gallery had been deepened to admit a truly ample fireplace,
+with a flat hearthstone and andirons. Here were screens and rich Turkey
+rugs, and here the Bayfield household ordinarily had the lamps set
+after dinner and gathered before the fire, talking little, enjoying the
+long pauses filled with the hiss of logs and the monotonous drip and
+trickle of water in the penumbra.
+
+To-day the prisoners--two hundred in all--crowded the floor, the
+stairs, even the deep gallery above; but on the south side, facing the
+staircase, two heavy curtains had been looped back from the atrium,
+and there a ray of wintry sunshine fell through the glass roof upon
+the famous Bayfield pavement and the figure of Narcissus gravely
+expounding it.
+
+He had reached his peroration, and Dorothea, who knew every word of it
+by heart, was on the alert. At its close the audience held their breath
+for a second or two and then--satisfied, as their hostess rose, that
+he had really come to an end--tendered their applause, and, breaking
+into promiscuous chatter, trooped towards the tea-room. Narcissus
+lingered, with bent head, oblivious, silently repeating the last well-
+worn sentences while he conned his beloved tessellae.
+
+A voice aroused him from his brown study; he looked up, to find the
+hall deserted and M. Raoul standing at his elbow.
+
+"Will you remember your promise, Monsieur, and allow me to examine a
+little more closely? Ah, but it is wonderful! That Pentheus! And the
+Maenad there, carrying the torn limb! Also the border of vine-leaves
+and crossed thyrsi; though that, to be sure, is usual enough. And this
+next? Ah, I remember--_'Tu cum parentis regna per arduum'_; but what a
+devil of a design! And, above all, what mellowness! You will, I know,
+pardon the enthusiasm of one who comes from the Provence, a few miles
+out of Arles, and whose mother's family boasts itself to be descended
+from Roman colonists."
+
+Narcissus beamed.
+
+"To you then, M. Raoul, after your Forum and famous Amphitheatre, our
+pavement must seem a poor trifle--though it by no means exhausts our
+list of interesting remains. The praefurnium, for instance; I must
+show you our praefurnium."
+
+"The house would be remarkable anywhere--even in my own Provence--so
+closely has it kept the original lines. In half-an-hour one could
+reconstruct--"
+
+"Ay!" chimed in the delighted Narcissus. "You shall try, M. Raoul,
+you shall try! I promise to catch you tripping."
+
+"Yonder runs the Fosse Way, west by south. The villa stands about two
+hundred yards back from it, facing the south-east--"
+
+"A little east of south. The outer walls did not run exactly true with
+the enclosed quadrangle."
+
+"You say that the front measured two hundred feet, perhaps a little
+over. Clearly, then, it was a domain of much importance, and the
+granaries, mills, stables, slaves' dwellings would occupy much space
+about it--an acre and a half, at least."
+
+"Portions of a brick foundation were unearthed no less than three
+hundred yards away.  A hypocaust lay embedded among them, much broken
+but recognisable."
+
+"What puzzles me," mused M. Raoul, is how these southern settlers
+managed to endure the climate."
+
+"But that is explicable." Narcissus was off now, in full cry. "The
+trees, my dear sir, the trees! I have not the slightest doubt that our
+Bayfield elms are the ragged survivors of an immense forest--a forest
+which covered the whole primaeval face of Somerset on this side of the
+fens, and through which Vespasian's road-makers literally hewed their
+way. Given these forests--which, by the way, extended over the greater
+part of England--we must infer a climate totally unlike ours of this
+present day, damper perhaps, but milder. Within his belt of trees the
+colonist, secure from the prevailing winds, would plant a garden to
+rival your gardens of the South--_'primus vere rosam atque autumno
+carpere Poma.'_"
+
+"Yes," added M. Raoul, taking fire; "and, perhaps, a plant of
+helichryse or a rose-cutting from Paestum, to twine about the house-
+pillars and comfort his exile."
+
+"M. Raoul?" Dorothea's voice interrupted them. She stood by the looped
+curtain, and reproached Narcissus with a look. "He has had no tea yet;
+it was cruel of you to detain him. My brother, sir," she turned to
+Raoul, "has no conscience when once set going on his hobby; for, of
+course, you were discussing the pavement?"
+
+"We were talking, Mademoiselle, at that moment of the things which
+brighten and comfort exile."
+
+She lowered her eyes, conscious of a blush, and half angry that it
+would not be restrained.
+
+"And I was talking of tea, if that happens to be one of them," she
+replied, forcing a laugh.
+
+"Well, well," said Narcissus, "take M. Raoul away and give him his tea;
+but he must come with me afterwards, while there is light, and we will
+go over the site together. I must fetch my map."
+
+He hurried across the hall.
+
+"Come, M. Raoul," said Dorothea, stepping past her guest and leading
+the way, "by a small detour we can reach that end of the library which
+is least crowded."
+
+He followed without lifting his eyes, apparently lost in thought. The
+atrium on this side opened on a corridor which crossed the front door,
+and was closed by a door at either end--the one admitting to the
+service rooms, the other to the library. Flat columns relieved the
+blank wall of this passage, with monstrous copies of Raphael's cartoons
+filling the interspaces; on the other hand four tall windows, two on
+either side of the door, looked out upon the _porte cochere_, the avenue,
+and the rolling hills beyond Axcester. By one of these windows M. Raoul
+halted--and Dorothea halted too, slightly puzzled.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, but there is one thing your brother forgets! What
+became of his happy colonists in the end? He told us that early in the
+fifth century the Emperor Honorius--was it not?--withdrew his
+legions, and wrote that Britain must henceforth look after itself. I
+listened for the end of the story, but your brother did not supply it.
+Yet sooner or later one and the same dreadful fate must have overtaken
+all these pleasant scattered homes--sack and fire and slaughter--
+slaughter for all the men, for the women slavery and worse. Does one
+hear of any surviving? Out of this warm life into silence--" He paused
+and shivered. "Very likely they did not guess for a long while. Look,
+Mademoiselle, at the Fosse Way, stretching yonder across the hills:
+figure yourself a daughter of the old Roman homestead standing here and
+watching the little cloud of dust that meant the retreating column, the
+last of your protection. You would not guess what it meant--you, to
+whom each day has brought its restful round; who have lived only to be
+good and reflect the sunshine upon all near you. And I--your slave,
+suppose me, standing beside you--might guess as little."
+
+He took a step and touched her hand. His face was still turned to the
+window.
+
+"Time! time!" he went on in a low voice, charged with passion. "It
+eats us all! Brr--how I hate it! How I hate the grave! There lies the
+sting, Mademoiselle--the torture to be a captive: to feel one's best
+days slipping away, and fate still denying to us poor devils the chance
+which even the luckiest--God knows--find little enough." He laughed,
+and to Dorothea the laugh sounded passing bitter. "You will not
+understand how a man feels; how even so unimportant a creature as I
+must bear a sort of personal grudge against his fate."
+
+"I am trying to understand," said Dorothea, gently.
+
+"But this you can understand, how a prisoner loves the sunshine: not
+because, through his grating, it warms him; but because it is the
+sunshine, and he sees it. Mademoiselle, I am not grateful; I see
+merely, and adore. Some day you shall pause by this window and see a
+cloud of dust on the Fosse Way--the last of us prisoners as they march
+us from Axcester to the place of our release; and, seeing it, you shall
+close the book upon a chapter, but not without remembering"--he
+touched her hand again, but now his fingers closed on it, and he raised
+it to his lips,--"not without remembering how and when one Frenchman
+said, 'God bless you, Mademoiselle Dorothea!'"
+
+Dorothea's eyes were wet when, a moment later, Narcissus came bustling
+through the atrium with a roll of papers in his hand.
+
+"Ah, this is luck!" he cried. "I was starting to search for you."
+
+He either assumed that they had visited the tea-room or forgot all
+about it; and M. Raoul's look implored Dorothea not to explain.
+
+"Suppose we take the _triclinium_ first, on the north side of the
+house. That, sir, will tell you whether I am right or wrong about the
+climate of those days. A summer parlour facing north, and with no
+trace of heating-flues! . . ."
+
+He led off his captive, and Dorothea heard his expository tones gather
+volume as the pair crossed the great hall beneath the dome. Then she
+turned the handle of the library door, and was instantly deafened by
+the babel within.
+
+The guests took their departure a little before sunset. M. Raoul was
+not among the long train which shook hands with her and filed down the
+avenue at the heels of M. de Tocqueville and General Rochambeau.
+Twenty minutes later, while the servants were setting the hall in
+order, she heard her brother's voice beneath the window of her boudoir,
+explaining the system on which the Romans warmed their houses.
+
+She had picked up a religious book, but found herself unable to fix her
+attention upon it or even to sit still. Her hand still burned where
+M. Raoul's lips had touched it. She recalled Endymion's prophecy that
+these entertainments would throw the domestic mechanism--always more
+delicately poised on Sundays than on weekdays--completely oft its
+pivot. She had pledged herself to prevent this, and had made a private
+appeal to the maidservants with whose Sunday-out they interfered. They
+had responded loyally.
+
+Still, this was the first experiment; she would go down to the hall
+again and make sure that the couches were in position, the cushions
+shaken up, the pot-plants placed around the fountain so accurately that
+Endymion's nice eye for small comforts could detect no excuse for
+saying, "I told you so."
+
+As she passed along the gallery her eyes sought the pillar beside which
+M. Raoul had stood during the lecture. By the foot of it a book lay
+face downwards--a book cheaply bound between boards of mottled paper.
+She picked it up and read the title; it was a volume of Rousseau's
+Confessions--a book of which she remembered to have heard. On the
+flyleaf was written the owner's name in full--"Charles Marie Fabien
+de Raoul."
+
+Dorothea hurried downstairs with it and past the servants tidying the
+hall.
+
+She looked to find M. Raoul still buttonholed and held captive by
+Narcissus at the eastern angle of the house. But before she reached the
+front door she happened--though perhaps it was not quite accidental--
+to throw a glance through the window by which he had stood and talked
+with her, and saw him striding away down the avenue in the dusk.
+
+She returned to her room and summoned Polly.
+
+"You know M. Raoul? He has left, forgetting this book, which belongs to
+him. Run down to the small gate, that's a good girl--you will overtake
+him easily, since he is walking round by the avenue--and return it,
+with my compliments."
+
+Polly picked up her skirts and ran. A narrow path slanted down across
+the slope of the park to the nurseries--a sheltered corner in which
+the Bayfield gardener grew his more delicate evergreens--and here a
+small wicket-gate opened on the high road.
+
+The gate stood many feet above the road, which descended the hill
+between steep hedges. She heard M. Raoul's footstep as she reached it,
+and, peering over, saw him before he caught sight of her; indeed, he
+had almost passed with-out when she hailed him.
+
+"Holloa!" He swung almost rightabout and smiled up pleasantly. "Is it
+highway robbery? If so, I surrender."
+
+Polly laughed, showing a fine set of teeth.
+
+"I'm 'most out of breath," she answered. "You've left your book behind,
+and my mistress sent it after you with her compliments." She held it
+above the gate.
+
+He sprang up the bank towards her. "And a pretty book, too, to be
+found in your hands! You haven't been reading it, I hope."
+
+"La, no! Is it wicked?"
+
+"Much depends on where you happen to open it. Now if your sweetheart--"
+
+"Who told you I had one?"
+
+"Tut-tut-tut! What's his name?"
+
+"Well, if you must know, I'm walking out with Corporal Zeally. But what
+are you doing to the book?" For M. Raoul had taken out a penknife and
+was slicing out page after page--in some places whole blocks of pages
+together.
+
+"When I've finished, I'm going to ask you to take it back to your
+mistress; and then no doubt you'll be reading it on the sly. Here, I
+must sit down: suppose you let me perch myself on the top bar of the
+gate. Also, it would be kind of you to put up an arm and prevent my
+overbalancing."
+
+"I shouldn't think of it."
+
+"Oh, very well!" He climbed up, laid the book on his knee and went on
+slicing. "I particularly want her to read M. Rousseau's reflections on
+the Pont du Gard; but I don't seem to have a book marker, unless you
+lend me a lock of your hair."
+
+"Were you the gentleman she danced with, at 'The Dogs,' the night of
+the snowstorm?"
+
+"The Pont du Gard, my dear, is a Roman antiquity, and has nothing to
+do with dancing. If, as I suppose, you refer to the 'Pont de Lodi,'
+that is a totally different work of art."
+
+"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
+
+"And I don't intend that you shall."
+
+He cut a small strip of braid from his coat, inserted it for a
+bookmarker, and began to fold away the excised pages. "That's why I am
+keeping these back for my own perusal, and perhaps Corporal Zeally's."
+
+"Do you know him?" She reached up to take the book he was holding out
+in his left hand, and the next instant his right arm was round her neck
+and he had kissed her full on the lips. "Oh, you wretch!" she cried,
+breaking free; and laughed, next moment, as he nearly toppled off the
+gate.
+
+"Know him? Why of course I do." M. Raoul was reseating himself on his
+perch, when he happened to throw a look down into the road, and at
+once broke into immoderate laughter. "Talk of the wolf--"
+
+Polly screamed and ran. Below, at a bend of the road, stood a stoutish
+figure in the uniform of the Axcester Volunteers--scarlet, with white
+facings. It was Corporal Zeally, very slowly taking in the scene.
+
+M. Raoul skipped off the gate and stepped briskly past him. "Good-
+evening, Corporal! We're both of us a little behind time, this
+evening!" said he as he went by.
+
+The Corporal pivoted on his heels and stared after him.
+
+"Dang my living buttons!" he said, reflectively. "Couldn't even wait
+till my back was turned, but must kiss the maid under my nose!" He
+paused and rubbed his chin. "Her looked like Polly and her zounded
+like Polly . . . Dang this dimpsey old light, I've got a good mind to
+run after'n and ax'n who 'twas!" He took a step down the hill, but
+thought better, of it. "No, I won't," he said; "I'll go and ax Polly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+FATE IN A LAURELLED POST-CHAISE
+
+
+All the tongues of Rumour agreed that the Bayfield entertainment had
+been a success, and Endymion Westcote received many congratulations
+upon it at the next meeting of magistrates.
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense!" he protested lightly. "One must do something to
+make life more tolerable to the poor devils, and 'pon my word 'twas
+worth it to see their gratitude. They behaved admirably. You see, two-
+thirds of them are gentlemen, after a fashion; not, perhaps, quite in
+the sense in which we understand the word, but then the--ah--modicum
+of French blood in my veins counteracts, I dare say, some little
+insular prejudices."
+
+"My dear fellow, about such men as de Tocqueville and Rochambeau there
+can be no possible question."
+
+"Ah! I'm extremely glad to hear you say so. I feared, perhaps, the way
+they managed their table-napkins--"
+
+"Not at all. I was thinking rather of your bold attitude towards
+Sunday observance. What does Milliton say?"
+
+Endymion's eyebrows went up. Mr. Milliton was the vicar of Axcester
+and the living lay in the Westcotes' gift.  I am not--ah--aware that
+I consulted Milliton. On such questions I recognise no responsibility
+save to my own conscience. He has not been complaining, I trust?"
+
+"Not to my knowledge."
+
+"Ah!"  Endymion looked as if Mr. Milliton had better not. "I take, you
+must know, a somewhat broad view on such matters--may I, without
+offence, term it a liberal one? As a matter of fact I intend going yet
+farther in the direction and granting permission for a small reunion on
+Sunday evenings at 'The Dogs,' when selections of purely sacred music
+will be performed. I shall, of course, deprecate the name 'concert ';
+and even 'performance' may seem to carry with it some--ah--
+suggestions of a theatrical nature. But, as Shakespeare says, 'What's
+in a name?' Perhaps you can suggest a more suitable one?"
+
+"A broad-minded fellow," was the general verdict; and some admirers
+added that ideas which in weaker men might seem to lean towards free
+thought, and even towards Jacobinism, became Mr. Westcote handsomely
+enough. He knew how to carry them off, to wear them lightly as
+flourishes and ornaments of his robust common sense, and might be
+trusted not to go too far. Endymion, who had an exquisite flair for the
+approval of his own class, soon learned to take an honest pride in his
+liberalism and to enjoy its discreet display. 'The entertainment at
+Bayfield' was nothing--a private experiment only; the unfamiliar must
+be handled gently; a good rule to try it on your own household before
+tackling the world. As a matter of fact, old Narcissus had enjoyed it.
+But if the neighbouring families were really curious, and would promise
+not to be shocked, they must come to "The Dogs" some Sunday evening:
+No, not next Sunday, but in a week or two's time when the prisoners,
+as intelligent fellows, would have grasped his notions.'
+
+Sure enough, on the third Sunday he brought a round dozen of guests;
+and the entrance of the Bayfield party (punctually five minutes late),
+and their solemn taking of seats in the two front rows, thereafter
+became a feature of these entertainments. On the first occasion the
+musicians stopped, out of respect, in the middle of a motet of
+Scarlatti's; but Endymion gave orders that in future this was not
+to be.
+
+"I have been something of an amateur myself," he explained, "and know
+what is due to Art."
+
+It vexed Dorothea to note that after the first two or three
+performances some of her best friends among the prisoners absented
+themselves, General Rochambeau for one. Indeed, the General had taken
+to declining all invitations, and rarely appeared abroad. One March
+morning, meeting him in the High Street, she made bold to tax him with
+the change and ask his reasons.
+
+The hour was eleven in the forenoon, the busiest of the day. In twenty
+minutes the London coach would be due with the mails, and this always
+brought the prisoners out into the street. The largest crowd gathered
+in front of "The Dogs," waiting to see the horses changed and the bags
+unloaded. But a second hung around the Post Office, where the
+Commissary received and distributed the prisoners' letters, while
+lesser groups shifted and moved about at the tail of the butchers'
+carts, and others laden with milk, eggs, and fresh vegetables from the
+country; for Axcester had now a daily market, and in the few minutes
+before the mail's arrival the salesmen drove their best trade.
+
+General Rochambeau tapped his snuffbox meditatively, like a man in two
+minds. But he kept a sidelong eye upon Dorothea, as she turned to
+acknowledge a bow from the Vicomte de Tocqueville. The Vicomte, with
+an air of amused contempt, was choosing a steak for his dinner, using
+his gold-ferruled walking-stick to direct the butcher how to cut it
+out, while his servant stood ready with a plate.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Mademoiselle, I find a hand at picquet with
+the Admiral less fatiguing for two old gentlemen than these public
+gaieties."
+
+"In other words, you are nursing him. They tell me he has never been
+well since that night of the snowstorm."
+
+"Your informants may now add that he is better; these few Spring days
+have done wonders for his rheumatism, and, indeed, he is dressed and
+abroad this morning."
+
+"Which explains why you are willing to stop and chat with me, instead
+of hurrying off to the Post Office to ask for his letter--that letter
+which never comes."
+
+"So M. Raoul has been telling you all about us?"
+
+Dorothea blushed.
+
+"He happened to speak of it, at one of my working parties--"
+
+"He has a fine gift for the pathetic, that young man; oh, yes, and a
+pretty humour too! I can fancy what he makes of us--poor old Damon
+and Pythias--while he holds the skeins; with a smile for poor old
+Pythias' pigtail, and a tremor of the voice for the Emperor's
+_tabatiere_, and a tear, no doubt, for the letter which never comes.
+M. Raoul is great with an audience."
+
+"You do him injustice, General. An audience of half-a-dozen old women!"
+
+General Rochambeau had an answer to this on his tongue, but repressed
+it.
+
+"Ah, here comes the Admiral!" he cried, as the gaunt old man came
+shuffling down the street towards them, with his stoop, his cross-
+grained features drawn awry with twinges of rheumatism, his hands
+crossed above his tall cane. All Axcester laughed at his long blue
+surtout, his pigtail and little round hat. But Dorothea always found
+him formidable, and wanted to run away. "Admiral, I was just about to
+tell Miss Westcote that the time is come to congratulate her. Here is
+winter past--except that of two years ago, the hardest known in
+Axcester; and, thanks to her subscription lists and working parties,
+our countrymen have never gone so well fed and warmly clad."
+
+"Which," growled the Admiral, "does not explain why no less than eight
+of them have broken their parole.  An incredible, a shameful number!"
+
+"As time goes on, Admiral, they grow less patient. Hope deferred--"
+
+_Ta-ra, tara-ra! Ta-ra, tara-ra-ra!_ The notes of the guard's horn
+broke in upon Dorothea's excuse. Groups scattered, market carts were
+hastily backed alongside the pavement, and down the mid-thoroughfare
+came the mail at a gallop, with crack of whip and rushing chime of
+bits and swingle-bars.
+
+Dorothea watched the crowd closing round it as it drew up by "The
+Dogs," and turned to note that the Admiral's face was pale and his
+eyes sought those of his old friend.
+
+"Better leave it to me to-day, if Miss Westcote will excuse me."
+
+General Rochambeau lifted his hat and hurried after the crowd.
+
+Then Dorothea understood. The old man beside her had lost courage to
+pick up his old habit; at the last moment his friend must go for the
+letter which never came. She cast about to say something; her last
+words had been of hope deferred--it would not do to take up her
+speech there . . .
+
+The Admiral seemed to meet her eyes with an effort. He put out a hand.
+
+"It is not good, Mademoiselle, that a man should pity himself. Beware
+how you teach that; beware how you listen to him then."
+
+He turned from her abruptly and tottered away. Glancing aside, she met
+the Vicomte de Tocqueville's tired smile; he was using his cane to
+prod the butcher and recall his attention to the half-cut steak. But
+the butcher continued to stare down the street.
+
+"Eh? But, dear me, it sounds like an _emeute_," said the Vicomte,
+negligently; at the same time stepping to Dorothea's side.
+
+The murmur of the crowd in front of "The Dogs" had been swelling, and
+now broke into sharp, angry cries for a moment; then settled into a
+dull roar, and rose in a hoarse _crescendo_. The mail coach was
+evidently not the centre of disturbance, though Dorothea could see its
+driver waving his arm and gesticulating from the box. The noise came
+ahead of it, some twenty yards lower down the hill, where the street
+had suddenly grown black with people pressing and swaying.
+
+"There seems no danger here, whatever it is," said the Vicomte,
+glancing up at the house-front above.
+
+"Please go and see what is the matter. I am safe enough," Dorothea
+assured him. "The folks in the house will give me shelter, if
+necessary."
+
+The Vicomte lifted his hat. "I will return and report promptly, if the
+affair be serious."
+
+But it was not serious. The tumult died down, and Dorothea with her
+riding-switch was guarding the half-cut steak from a predatory dog
+when the Vicomte and the butcher returned together.
+
+"Reassure yourself, Miss Westcote," said M. de Tocqueville. "There has
+been no bloodshed, though bloodshed was challenged. It appears that
+almost as the coach drew up there arrived from the westward a post-
+chaise conveying a young naval officer from Plymouth, with despatches
+and (I regret to tell it) a flag. His Britannic Majesty has captured
+another of our frigates; and the high spirited young gentleman was
+making the most of it in all innocence, and without an idea that his
+triumph could offend anyone in Axcester. Unfortunately, on his way up
+the street, he waved the captured tricolor under the nose of your
+brother's _protege_, M. Raoul--"
+
+"M. Raoul!" Dorothea caught her breath on the name.
+
+"And M. Raoul leapt into the chaise, then and there wrested the flag
+from him--the more easily no doubt because he expected nothing so
+little and holding it aloft, challenged him to mortal combat.
+Theatrically, and apart from the taste of it (I report only from
+hearsay), the coup must have been immensely successful. When I
+arrived, your brother was restoring peace, the young Briton holding
+out his hand--swearing he was sorry, begad! but how the deuce was he
+to have known ?--and M. Raoul saving the situation, and still
+demanding blood with a face as long as an Alexandrine:
+
+"_'Ce drapeau glorieux auquel, en sanglotant,
+Se prosternent affaises vos membres, veterans!'_
+
+"'Vary sorry, damitol, shake hands, beg your pardon.'"
+
+The Vicomte forgot his languor, and burlesqued the scene with real
+talent.
+
+Dorothea, however, was not amused.
+
+"You say my brother is at 'The Dogs,' Monsieur? I think I will go
+to him."
+
+"You must allow me, then, to escort you."
+
+"Oh, the street is quite safe. Your countrymen will not suspect me of
+exulting over their misfortunes."
+
+"Nevertheless--" he insisted, and walked beside her.
+
+ A mixed crowd of French and English still surrounded the chaise, to
+which a couple of postboys were attaching the relay: the French no
+longer furious, now that an apology had been offered and the flag
+hidden, but silent and sulky yet; the English inclined to think the
+young lieutenant hardly served, not to say churlishly. Frenchmen might
+be thin-skinned; but war was war, and surely Britons had a right to
+raise three cheers for a victory. Besides he had begged pardon at once,
+and offered to shake hands like a gentleman--that is, as soon as he
+discovered whose feelings were hurt; for naturally the fisticuffs had
+come first, and in these Master Raoul had taken as good as he brought.
+As the Vicomte cleared a path for her to the porch, where Endymion
+stood shaking hands and bidding adieu, Dorothea caught her first and
+last glimpse of this traveller, who--without knowing it, without
+seeing her face to remember it, or even learning her name--was to
+deflect the slow current of her life, and send it whirling down a
+strange channel, giddy, precipitous, to an end unguessed.
+
+She saw a fresh-complexioned lad, somewhat flushed and red in the face,
+but of frank and pleasant features; dressed in a three-cornered cocked-
+hat, blue coat piped with white and gilt-buttoned, white breeches and
+waistcoat, and broad black sword-belt; a youngster of the sort that
+loves a scrimmage or a jest, but is better in a scrimmage than in a
+jest when the laugh goes against him. He was eying the chaise just now,
+and obviously cursing the hour in which he had decorated it with laurel.
+
+Yet on the whole in a trying situation he bore himself well.
+
+"Ah, much obliged to you, Vicomte!" Endymion hailed the pair. "There
+has been a small misunderstanding, my dear Dorothea; not the slightest
+cause for alarm! Still, you had better pass through to the coffee-room
+and wait for me."
+
+Dorothea dismissed M. de Tocqueville with a bow, passed into the dark
+passage and pushed open the coffee-room door.
+
+Within sat a young man, his elbows on the table, and his face bowed
+upon his arms. His fingers convulsively twisted a torn scrap of
+bunting; his shoulders heaved. It was M. Raoul.
+
+Dorothea paused in the doorway and spoke his name. He did not look up.
+
+She stepped towards him.
+
+"M. Raoul!"
+
+A sob shook him. She laid a hand gently on his bowed head, on the dark
+wave of hair above his strong, shapely neck. She was full of pity,
+longing to comfort . . .
+
+"M. Raoul!"
+
+He started, gazed up at her, and seized her hand. His eyes swam with
+tears, but behind the tears blazed a light which frightened her. Yet--
+oh, surely!--she could not mistake it.
+
+"Dorothea!"
+
+He held both her hands now. He was drawing her towards him. She could
+not speak. The room swam; outside the window she heard the noise of
+starting hoofs, of wheels, of the English crowd hurrahing as the chaise
+rolled away. Her head almost touched M. Raoul's breast. Then she broke
+loose, as her brother's step sounded in the passage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LOVE AND AN OLD MAID
+
+
+I pray you be gentle with Dorothea. Find, if you can, something
+admirable in this plain spinster keeping, at the age of thirty-seven,
+a room in her breast adorned and ready for first love; find it pitiful,
+if you must, that the blind boy should mistake his lodging; only do
+not laugh, or your laughter may accuse you in the sequel.
+
+She had a most simple heart. Wonder filled it as she rode home to
+Bayfield, and by the bridge she reined up Mercury as if to take her
+bearings in an unfamiliar country. At her feet rushed the Axe, swollen
+by spring freshets; a bullfinch, wet from his bath, bobbed on the sand-
+stone parapet, shook himself, and piped a note or two; away up the
+stream, among the alders, birds were chasing and courting; from above
+the Bayfield elms, out of spaces of blue, the larks' song fell like a
+din of innumerable silver hammers. Either new sense had been given her,
+or the rains had washed the landscape and restored obliterated lines,
+colours, meanings. The very leaves by the roadside were fragrant as
+flowers.
+
+For the moment it sufficed to know that she was loved, and that she
+loved. She was no fool. At the back of all her wonder lay the certainty
+that in the world's eyes such love as hers was absurd; that it must end
+where it began; that Raoul could never be hers, nor she escape from a
+captivity as real as his. But, perhaps because she knew all this so
+certainly, she could put it aside. This thing had come to her: this
+happiness to which, alone, in darkness, depressed by every look into
+the mirror, by every casual proof that her brothers and intimates
+accepted the verdict as final, her soul had been loyal--a forgotten
+servant of a neglectful lord. In the silence of her own room, in her
+garden, in the quiet stir of household duties, and again during the
+long evenings while she sat knitting by the fire and her brothers
+talked, she had pondered much upon love and puzzled herself with many
+questions. She had watched girls and their lovers, wives and their
+husbands. Can love (she had asked) draw near and pass and go its way
+unrecognised? She had conned the signs. Now the hour had come, and she
+had needed none of her learning--eyes, hands, and voice, she had
+known the authentic god.
+
+And she knew that it was not absurd; she knew herself worthy of love's
+belated condescension--not Raoul's; for the moment she scarcely
+thought of Raoul; for the moment Raoul's image grew faint and
+indefinite in the glory of being loved. Instinct, too, thrust it into
+the background; for as Raoul grew definite so must his youth, his
+circumstances, the world's laughter, the barriers never to be overcome.
+But merely to be loved, and to rest in that knowledge awhile--here
+were no barriers. The thing had happened: it was: nothing could forbid
+or efface it.
+
+Yet when she reached home, after forcing the astonished Mercury to
+canter up the entire length of Bayfield hill, she must walk straight
+to her room, and study her face in the glass.
+
+"It has happened to you--to you! Why has it not transfigured you?--
+but then people would guess. Your teeth stand out--well, not so very
+prominently--but they stand out, and that is why foreigners laugh at
+Englishwomen. Yes, it has happened to you; but why? how?"
+It so happened that she must meet him the next day. Narcissus had
+engaged him to make drawings of the Bayfield pavement, a new series to
+supersede hers in an enlarged edition of the treatise. Every one of
+the _tessellae_ was to be drawn to scale, and she must meet him
+to-morrow in the library with her brother and receive instructions, for
+she had promised to help in taking measurements.
+
+When the time came, and she entered the library, she did not indeed
+dare to lift her eyes. But Narcissus, already immersed in calculations,
+scarcely looked up from his paper. "Ah, there you are! Have you brought
+the India-ink?" he asked, and after a minute she marvelled at her own
+self-possession. Even when he left them to work out the measurements
+together (and it flashed upon her that henceforth they would often be
+left together, her immunity being taken for granted), she kept her head
+bowed over the papers and managed to control her voice to put one or
+two ordinary questions--until the pencil dropped from her fingers and
+she felt her hand imprisoned.
+
+"Dorothea!"
+
+"Oh, please, no!" she entreated hoarsely. "M. Raoul--!"
+
+"Charles--" She attempted to draw her hand away; but, failing, lifted
+her eyes for mercy. They were sick and troubled. "Charles," he insisted.
+
+"Charles, then." She relented and he kissed her gaily. It was as if she
+drank in the kiss and, the next moment, recoiled from it. He released
+her hand and waited, watching her. She stood upright by the table, her
+shoulder turned to him, her eyes gazing through the long window upon
+the green stretch of lawn. She was trembling slightly.
+
+"It--it hurts like a wound," she murmured, and her hand went up to her
+breast. "But you must listen, please. You know--better than I--that
+this is the end. Oh, yes"--as he would have interrupted--"it is
+beautiful--for me. But I am old and you are a boy, and it is all quite
+silly. Please listen: even apart from this, it would be quite silly and
+could end nowhere."
+
+He caught at her hand again, and she let it lie in his.
+
+"Nowhere," she repeated, and, lifting her head, nodded twice. Her eyes
+were brimming.
+
+"But if you love me?" he began.
+
+She waited a moment, but he did not finish. "Ah! there it is, you see:
+you cannot finish. I was afraid to meet you to-day; but now I am glad,
+because we can talk about it once and for all. Charles"--she hesitated
+over the name--"dear, I have been thinking. Since we see this so
+clearly, it can be no treachery to my brothers to let our love stand
+where it does. At my age"--and Dorothea laughed nervously--"one is
+more easily contented than at yours."
+
+"I cannot bear your talking in this way."
+
+"Oh yes, you can," she assured him with a practical little nod. "I
+don't like it myself, but it has to be done. Now in the first place,
+when we meet like this there must be no kissing." She blushed, while
+her voice wavered again over the word; then, as again his hand closed
+upon hers, she laughed. "Well--yes, you may kiss my hand. But I must
+not have it on my conscience that I am hiding from Endymion and
+Narcissus what they have a right to know. Of course they would be angry
+if they knew that I--that I was fond of you at all; but they would
+have no right, for they could not have forbidden or prevented it. Now
+if our prospects were what folks would call happier, why then in
+earnest of them you might kiss me, but then you would be bound to go to
+my brothers and tell them. But since it can all come to nothing--"
+A ghost of a smile finished the sentence.
+
+"This war cannot last for ever."
+
+"It seems to have lasted ever since I can remember. But what difference
+could its ending make? Ah, yes, then I should lose you!" she cried in
+dismay, but added with as sudden remorse: "Forgive my selfishness!"
+
+"You are adorable," said he, and they laughed and picked up their
+pencils.
+
+Dorothea's casuistry might prove her ignorant of love and its perils,
+as a child is of fire; but having, as she deemed, discovered the limits
+of her duty and set up her terms with Raoul upon them, she soon
+developed a wonderful cunning in the art of being loved. Her plainness
+and the difference in their ages she took for granted, and subtly
+persuaded Raoul to take for granted; she had no affectations, no
+_minauderies_; by instinct she avoided setting up any illusion which he
+could not share; unconsciously and naturally she rested her strength on
+the maternal, protective side of love. Raoul came to her with his woes,
+his difficulties, his quarrel against fate; and she talked them over
+with him, and advised him almost as might a wise elder sister. She had
+read the _Confessions_; and, in spite of the missing pages, with less
+of fascination than disgust; yet had absorbed more than she knew. In
+Raoul she recognised certain points of likeness to his great
+countryman--points which had puzzled, her in the book. Now the book
+helped her to treat them, though she was unaware of its help. Still
+less aware was she of any likeness between her and Madame de Warens,
+of whom (again in spite of the missing pages) she had a poor opinion.
+
+The business of the drawings brought Raoul to Bayfield almost daily,
+and, as she had foreseen, they were much alone.
+
+After all, since it could end in nothing, the situation had its
+advantages; no one in the household gave it a thought, apparently.
+Dorothea was not altogether sure about Polly; once or twice she had
+caught Polly eying her with an odd expression--once especially, when
+she had looked up as the girl was plaiting her hair, and their eyes
+met in the glass. And once again Dorothea had sent her to the library
+with a note of instructions left that morning by Narcissus, and,
+following a few minutes later, had found her standing and talking with
+M. Raoul in an attitude which, without being familiar, was not quite
+respectful.
+
+"What was she saying?" her mistress asked, a moment or two later.
+
+"Oh, nothing," he answered negligently. "I suppose that class of
+person cannot be troubled to show respect to prisoners."
+
+That evening Dorothea rated the girl soundly for her pertness. "And I
+shall speak to Zeally," she threatened, "if anything of the kind
+happens again. If Mr. Endymion is to let you two have a house when you
+marry, and take in the Frenchmen as lodgers, he will want to know that
+you treat them respectfully."
+
+Polly wept, and was forgiven.
+
+April, May, June, went by, and still Dorothea lived in her dream,
+troubled only by dread of the day which must bring her lover's task to
+an end, and, with it, his almost daily visits. Bit by bit she learned
+his story. He told her of Arles, his birthplace, with its Roman masonry
+and amphitheatre; of a turreted terraced chateau and a family of
+aristocrats lording it among the vineyards; conspiring a little later
+with other noble families, entertaining them at secret meetings of the
+_Chiffonne_, where oaths were taken; later again, defending itself
+behind barricades of paving-stones; last of all, marched or carried in
+batches to the guillotine or the fusillade. He told of Avignon and its
+Papal Castle overhanging the Rhone, the city where he had spent his
+school days, and at the age of nine had seen Patriot L'Escuyer stabbed
+to death in the Cordeliers' Church with women's scissors; had seen
+Jourdan, the avenger, otherwise Coupe-tete, march flaming by at the
+head of his brave _brigands d'Avignon_. He told of the sequel, the
+hundred and thirty men, women and babes slaughtered in the dungeon of
+the _Glaciere_; of Choisi's Dragoons and Grenadiers at the gates, and
+how, with roses scattered before them, they marched through the streets
+to the Castle, entered the gateway and paused, brought to a stand by
+the stench of putrefying flesh. He and his school mates had taken a
+holiday--their master being in hiding--to see the bodies lifted out.
+Also he had seen the search party ride out through the gates and return
+again, bringing Jourdan, with feet strapped beneath his horse's belly.
+He told of his journey to, Paris--his purpose to learn to paint (at
+such a time!); of the great David, fat and wheezy, back at his easel,
+panting from civil blood-shed; of the call to arms, his enlistment,
+his first campaign of 1805; of the foggy morning of Austerlitz, his
+wound, and he long hours he lay in the rear of a battery on the height
+of Pratzen, writhing, watching the artillerymen at work and so on,
+with stories of marching and fighting, nights slept out by him at full
+length on the sodden turf beside his arms.
+
+She had no history to tell him in exchange; she asked only to listen
+and to comfort. Yet so cleverly he addressed his story that the longest
+monologue became, by aid of a look or pressure of the hand, a
+conversation in which she, his guardian angel, bore her part. Did he
+talk of Avignon, for instance? It was the land of Laura and Petrarch,
+and she, seated with half-closed eyes beneath the Bayfield elms, saw
+the pair beside the waters of Vaucluse, saw the roses and orange-trees
+and arid plains of Provence, and wondered at the trouble in their
+spiritual love. She was not troubled; love as "a dureless content and
+a trustless joy" lay outside of her knowledge, and she had no desire
+to prove it. In this only she forgot the difference between Raoul's
+age and hers.
+
+The day came when his work was ended. They spent a great part of that
+afternoon in the garden, now in the height of its midsummer glory.
+Raoul was very silent.
+
+"But this must not end. It cannot end so!" he groaned once or twice.
+
+He never forgot for long his old spite against Time.
+
+"It will never end for me," she murmured.
+
+"Of what are you made, then, that you look forward to living on
+shadows?--one would say, almost cheerfully! I believe you could be
+happy if you never saw me again!"
+
+"Even if that had to be," she answered gravely, "while I knew you
+loved me I should never be quite unhappy. But you must find a way,
+while you can, to come sometimes; yes, you must come."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES
+
+
+Dorothea sat in the great hall of Bayfield, between the lamplight and
+the moonlight, listening to the drip of the fountain beneath its tiny
+cupola. A midsummer moon-ray fell through the uncurtained lantern
+beneath the dome and spread in a small pool of silver at her feet.
+Beneath one of the two shaded lamps Endymion lounged in his armchair
+and read the Sherborne Mercury. Narcissus had carried off the other to
+a table across the hall by the long bookcase, and above the pot-plants
+banked about the fountain she saw it shining on his shapely grey head
+as he bent over a copy of the Antonine Itinerary and patiently worked
+out a new theory of its distances. Her own face rested in deep shadow,
+and she felt grateful for it as she leaned back thinking her own
+thoughts. It was a whole week now since Charles had visited Bayfield,
+but she had encountered him that morning in Axcester High Street as
+she passed up it on horseback with her brothers. Narcissus had reined
+up to put some question or other about the drawings, but Endymion (who
+did not share his brother's liking for M. Raoul) had ridden on, and
+she had ridden on too, though reluctantly. She recalled his salute,
+his glance at her, and down-dropped eyes; she wondered what point
+Narcissus and he had discussed, and blamed herself for not having
+found courage to ask. . . .
+
+The stable clock struck ten. She arose and kissed her brothers good-
+night. By Narcissus she paused.
+
+"Be careful of your eyes, dear. And if you are going to be busy with
+that great book these next few evenings I will have the table brought
+across to the other side where you will be cosier."
+
+Narcissus came out of his calculations and looked up at her gently.
+"Please do not disarrange the furniture for me; a change always fidgets
+me, even before I take in precisely what has happened." He smiled.
+"In that I resemble my old friend Vespasian, who would have no
+alterations made when he visited his home--_manente villa qualis
+fuerat olim, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret_.
+A pleasant trait, I have always thought."
+
+He lit her candle and kissed her, and Dorothea went up the broad
+staircase to her own room. Half-way along the corridor she stayed a
+moment to look down upon the hall. Endymion had dropped his newspaper
+and was yawning; a sure sign that Narcissus, already reabsorbed in the
+Itinerary, would in a few moments be hurried from it to bed.
+
+She reached the door of her room and opened it, then checked an
+exclamation of annoyance. For some mysterious reason Polly had
+forgotten to light her candle. This was her rule, never broken before.
+
+She stepped to the bellpull. Her hand was on it, when she heard the
+girl's voice muttering in the next room--the boudoir. At least, it
+sounded like Polly's voice, though its tone was strangely subdued and
+level. "Talking to herself," Dorothea decided, and smiled, in spite of
+her annoyance, as everyone smiles who catches another in this trick.
+She dropped the bellpull and opened the boudoir door.
+
+Polly was not talking to herself. She was leaning far out of the open
+window, and at the sound of the door started back into the room with a
+gasp and a short cry.
+
+"To whom were you talking?"
+
+Dorothea had set the candle down in the bedroom. Outside the window
+the park lay spread to the soft moonshine, but the moon did not look
+directly into the boudoir. In the half-light mistress and maid sought
+each other's eyes.
+
+"To whom were you talking?" Dorothea demanded, sternly.
+
+Polly was silent for a second or two, then her chin went up defiantly.
+
+"To Mr. Raoul," she muttered.
+
+"To M. Raoul!--to M. Raoul? I don't understand. Is M. Raoul--Oh, for
+goodness sake speak, girl! What is that? I see a piece of paper in
+your hand."
+
+Polly twisted it in her fingers, and made a movement to hide it in her
+pocket; but with the movement she seemed to reflect.
+
+"He gave it to me; I don't understand anything about it. I was
+shutting the window, when he whistled to me; he gave me this. I--I
+think he meant it for you."
+
+Polly's tone suddenly became saucy, but her voice shook.
+
+Dorothea was shaking too, as her fingers closed on the note. She
+vainly sought to read the girl's eyes. Her own cheeks were burning;
+she felt the blood rushing into them and singing in her ears. Yet in
+her abasement she kept her dignity, and, motioning Polly to follow,
+stepped into the bedroom, unfolded the letter slowly, and read it by
+the candle there.
+
+   _"My Angel,
+
+   "I have hungered now for a week. Be at your window this evening
+   and let me, at least, be fed with a word. See what I risk for you.
+
+   "Yours devotedly and for ever."_
+
+There was no signature, but well enough Dorothea knew the handwriting.
+A wave of anger swelled in her heart--the first she had ever felt
+towards him. He had behaved selfishly. "See what I risk for you!"--
+but to what risk was he exposing her! He was breaking their covenant
+too; demanding that which he must know her conscience abhorred. She
+had not believed he could understand her so poorly, held her so cheap.
+Cheap indeed, since he had risked her secret in Polly's hand!
+
+She turned the paper over, noting its creases. Suddenly--"You have
+opened and read this!" she said.
+
+Polly admitted it with downcast eyes. The girl, after the first
+surprise, had demeaned herself admirably, and now stood in the attitude
+proper to a confidential servant; solicitous, respectful, prepared to
+blink the peccadillo, even to sympathise discreetly at a hint given.
+
+"I'm sorry, Miss, that I opened it; I ought to have told you, but you
+took me by surprise. You know, Miss, that you gave me leave to run down
+to my aunt's this evening; and on my way back--just as I was letting
+myself in by the nursery gate, Mr. Raoul comes tearing up the hill
+after me and slips this into my hand. To tell you the truth, it rather
+frightened me being run after like that. And he said something and ran
+back--for nine was just striking, and in a moment the Ting-tang would
+be ringing and he must be back to answer his name. So in my fluster I
+didn't catch what he meant. When I got home and opened it, I saw my
+mistake. But you were downstairs at dinner--I couldn't get to speak
+with you alone--I waited to tell you; and just now, when I was
+drawing the blinds, I heard a whistle--"
+
+"M. Raoul had no right to send me such a message, Polly. I cannot
+think what he means by it. Nothing that I have ever said to him--"
+
+"No, Miss," Polly assented readily. After a pause she added: "I suppose
+you'd like me to go now? You won't be wanting your hair done to-night?"
+
+"Certainly I wish you to stay. Is he--is M. Raoul outside?"
+
+"I think so, Miss. Oh, yes--for certain he is."
+
+"Then I must insist on your staying with me while I dismiss him."
+
+"Very good, Miss. Would you wish me to stay here, or to come with you?"
+
+Dorothea felt herself blushing, and her temper rose again. "For the
+moment, stay here. I will leave the door open and call you when you
+are wanted."
+
+She passed into the boudoir and bent to the open window. At this corner
+the foundations of the house stood some feet lower than the slope out
+of which they had been levelled, and she looked down upon a glacis of
+smooth turf, capped by a glimmering parapet of Bath stone. Beyond
+stretched the moonlit park.
+
+"M. Raoul!" she called, but scarcely above a whisper.
+
+A figure crept out from the dark angle below and climbed to the parapet.
+
+"Dorothea! Forgive me! Another night and no word with you--I could not
+bear it."
+
+"You are mad. You are breaking your parole and risking shame for me.
+Nay, you have shamed me already. Polly is here."
+
+"Polly is a good girl; she understands. A word, then, if you must drive
+me away."
+
+"Your _parole!_"
+
+"I can pass the sentries. No fear of the patrol hereabouts. Your hand--
+let down your hand to me. I can reach it from the parapet here--with
+my fingers only, not with my lips, though even that you never forbade!"
+
+Weakly, she lowered her arm over the sill. He reached to touch it, and
+she leaned her face towards his--hers in shadow, his pale in the
+moonlight.
+
+Before their fingers met, a yellow flame leapt from the angle to the
+left; a loud report banged in her ears and echoed across the park; and
+Raoul, after swaying a second, pitched forward with a sharp cry and
+rolled to the foot of the glacis.
+
+Dorothea forced herself back in the room, and stood there upright and
+shook, with Polly beside her holding her two hands.
+
+"They have shot him!"
+
+The two women listened for a moment. All was still now. Polly stepped
+to the window and, closed it softly.
+
+"But why? What are you doing?" Dorothea asked, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"They will find quite enough without that," said the practical girl,
+but her voice quavered.
+
+"Yet if they had seen--Ah, how selfish to think of that now! Hush--
+that was a groan! He is alive still."
+
+She moved towards the window, but Polly dragged her back by main force.
+
+"Listen, Miss!"
+
+Below they heard the sudden unbarring of doors, and Endymion's voice
+calling for Mudge, the butler. A bell pealed in the servants' hall,
+stopped, and began ringing again in short and violent jerks.
+
+"Let me go," commanded Dorothea. "They will never find him, under the
+slope there. He may be bleeding to death. I must tell--"
+
+But Polly clung to her. "They'll find him safe enough, Miss Dorothea.
+There's Sam, now--hark!--at the backdoor bell: he'll tell them."
+
+"Sam!"
+
+"Sam Zeally, Miss."
+
+"But I don't understand," Dorothea stammered; with a sharp suspicion
+of treachery, she pushed the girl from her. "Was Zeally mounting guard
+tonight? If I thought--don't tell me it was a trap! Oh, you wicked
+girl!"
+
+"No; it wasn't," answered Polly, sulkily. "I don't know nothing of
+Sam's movements. But he might be hanging about the house; and if he
+saw a man talking to me, he's just as jealous as fire."
+
+She broke off at the sound of voices below the window. The ray of a
+lantern, as the search-party jolted it, flashed and danced on wall and
+ceiling of the dim boudoir. A sharp exclamation announced that Raoul
+was discovered. A confused muttering followed; and then Dorothea heard
+Endymion's voice calling up to Mudge from the bottom of the trench.
+
+"Run to Miss Westcote's room and tell her we shall require lint and
+bandages. There is no cause for alarm, assure her; say there has been
+an accident--a Frenchman overtaken out of bounds and wounded--I
+think, not seriously. If she be gone to bed, get the medicine chest
+and the key and bring them into the kitchen."
+
+Dorothea had charge of the Bayfield medicine chest, and kept it in a
+cupboard of the boudoir. She groped for it, pulled open drawer after
+drawer, rifled them for lint and linen, and by the time Mudge tapped
+on the door, stood ready with the chest under one arm and a heap of
+bandages in the other.
+
+"In the kitchen, Mr. Endymion said. I am coming at once; take the
+chest, run, and have as many candles lit as possible."
+
+Mudge ran; Dorothea followed--with Polly behind her, trembling like
+a leaf.
+
+The two women reached the kitchen as the party entered with Raoul,
+and supported him to a chair beside the dying fire. His face was
+colourless, and he lay back and closed his eyes weakly as Endymion
+stooped to examine the wounded leg, with Narcissus in close attendance,
+and the others standing respectfully apart--Mudge, the two footmen
+(in their shirt sleeves), an under-gardener named Best, one of the
+housemaids, and Corporal Zeally by the door in regimentals, with his
+japanned shako askew and his Brown Bess still in his hand. Behind his
+shoulder, three or four of the women servants hung about the doorway
+and peered in, between curiosity and terror.
+
+It was a part of Endymion's fastidiousness that the sight of blood--
+that is, of human blood--turned his stomach. In her distress Dorothea
+could not help admiring how he conquered this aversion; how he knelt
+in his spick-and-span evening dress, and, after turning back his
+ruffles, unlaced the prisoner's soaked shoe and rolled down the
+stocking.
+
+He looked up gratefully as she entered. In such emergencies Narcissus
+was worse than useless; but Dorothea had the nursing instinct, and her
+brothers recognised it. The sight of a wound or a hurt steadied her
+wits, and she became practical and helpful at once.
+
+"A flesh wound only, I think; just above the ankle--the tendon cut,
+but the bone apparently not broken."
+
+"It may be splintered, though," said Dorothea. "Has anyone thought of
+sending for Doctor Ibbetson? He must be fetched at once. A towel,
+please--three or four--from the dresser there." A footman brought
+the towels. She knelt, folded two on her lap, and, resting Raoul's foot
+there, drew the stocking gently from the wound. "A basin and warm
+water, not too hot. Polly, you will find a small sponge in the, second
+drawer . . ." She nodded towards the medicine chest. "One of you, make
+up a better fire and set on a fresh kettle . . ."
+
+She gave her orders in a low firm voice, and continued to direct
+everyone thus, while she sponged the wound and drew off the stocking.
+Neither towards them nor towards Raoul did she lift her eyes. The bare
+foot of her beloved rested in her lap. She heard him groan twice, but
+with no pain inflicted by her fingers; if their slightest pressure had
+hurt him she would have known. She went on bathing the wound--she,
+who could have bathed it with her tears. As time passed, and still the
+doctor did not come, she began to bandage it. She called on Polly for
+the bandages; then, still without looking up, she divined that Polly
+was useless--was engaged in trying to catch Zeally's eye, and warn
+him or get a word with him.
+
+"He's pale as a ghost yet," said Endymion. "Another dose of brandy
+might set him up. I gave him some from my flask before bringing him in."
+
+"He is not going to faint," she answered.
+
+"Well, I won't bother him with questions until he comes round a bit.
+You, Zeally, had better step into my room though, and give me your
+version of the affair."
+
+But as the Corporal saluted and took a step forward, the prisoner
+opened his eyes.
+
+"Before you examine Zeally, sir, let me save you what trouble I can."
+He spoke faintly, but with deliberation. "I wish to deny nothing. I was
+escaping, and he tracked me. He came on me as I cut across the park,
+and challenged. I did not answer, but ran around a corner of the house
+and jumped the parapet, thinking to double along the trench there and
+put him off the scent--at least to dodge the bullet, if he fired. But
+as I jumped for it, he winged me. A very pretty shot, too. With your
+leave, sir, I 'd like to shake hands with him on it. Shake hands,
+Corporal!" Raoul stretched out a hand, sideways. "You're a smart
+fellow, and no malice between soldiers."
+
+Dorothea heard Polly's gasp: it seemed to her that all the room must
+hear it. Her own hand trembled on the bandage. She had forgotten her
+danger--the all but inevitable scandal--until Raoul brought it back
+to her, and in the same breath saved her by his heroic lie. She could
+not profit by it, though. Her lips parted to refute it, and for the
+first time she gazed up at him, her eyes brimming with sudden love,
+gratitude, pride, even while they entreated against the sacrifice. He
+was smiling down with an air of faint amusement; yet beneath the lashes
+she read a command which mastered her will, imposed silence. He had
+taken on a new manliness, and for the first time in the story of their
+loves she felt herself dominated by something stronger than passion. He
+had swept her off her feet, before now, by boyish ardour: her humility,
+the marvel of being loved, had aided him; but hitherto in her heart she
+had always felt her own character to be the stronger. Now he challenged
+her on woman's own ground--that of self-abnegation; he commanded her
+to his own hurt, he towered above her. She had never dreamed of a love
+like this. Beaten, despairing for him, yet proud as she had never been
+in her life, she held her breath.
+
+Corporal Zeally was merely bewildered. His was a deliberate mind and
+had hatched out the night's catastrophe after incubating it for weeks.
+Unconvinced by Polly's explanation of her meeting with M. Raoul at the
+Nursery gate, he had nursed a dull jealousy and set himself to watch,
+and had dogged his man down at length with the slow cunning of a yokel
+bred of a line of poachers. Raoul's tribute to his smartness perplexed
+him and almost he scented a trap.
+
+"Beg your pardon, Squire," he began heavily, forgetting military forms
+of address, "but the gentleman don't put it right."
+
+"Oh, hang your British modesty!" put in Raoul with a wry laugh. "If it
+pleases you to represent that the whole thing was accidental and you
+don't deserve to be promoted sergeant for tonight's work, at least you
+might respect my vanity."
+
+Polly saw her opportunity. She crossed boldly and made as if to lay
+over the Corporal's mouth the hand that would fain have boxed his ears.
+"Reckon this is my affair," she announced, with an effrontery at which
+one of the footmen guffawed openly. "Be modest as you please, my lad,
+when I've married 'ee; but I won't put up with modesty from anyone
+under a sergeant, and that I warn 'ee!"
+
+The Corporal eyed his sweetheart without forgiveness. His mouth was
+open, but upon the word "sergeant," he shut it again and began to
+digest the idea.
+
+"You know, of course, sir," Endymion Westcote addressed the prisoner
+coldly, "to what such a confession commits you? I do not see what other
+construction the facts admit, but it is so serious in itself and in its
+consequences that I warn you--"
+
+"I have broken my _parole_, sir," said Raoul, simply. "Of the
+temptations you cannot judge. Of the shame I am as profoundly sensible
+as you can be. The consequences I am ready to suffer."
+
+He sank back in his chair as Dr. Ibbetson entered.
+
+
+An hour later Dorothea said goodnight to her brother in the great hall.
+He had lit his candle and was mixing himself a glass of brandy and
+water.
+
+"The sight of blood--" he excused himself. "I am sorry for the fellow,
+though I never liked him. I suppose, now, there was nothing between him
+and that girl Polly? For a moment--from Zeally's manner--" He gulped
+down the drink. "His confession was honest enough, anyhow. Poor fool!
+he's safe in hospital for a week, and his friends, if he has any, and
+they know what it means, will pray for that week to be prolonged."
+
+"What does it mean?" Dorothea managed to ask.
+
+"It means Dartmoor."
+
+Dorothea's candlestick shook in her hand, and the extinguisher fell on
+the floor. Her brother picked it up and restored it.
+
+"Naturally," he murmured with brotherly concern, "your nerves! It has
+been a trying night, but you comported yourself admirably, Dorothea.
+Ibbetson assures me he could not have tied the bandage better himself.
+I felt proud of my sister." He kissed her gallantly and pulled out his
+watch. "Past twelve o'clock!--time they were round with the barouche.
+The sooner we get Master Raoul down to the Infirmary and pack him in
+bed, the better."
+
+As Dorothea went up the stairs she heard the sound of wheels on the
+gravel.
+
+She could not accept his sacrifice. No; a way must be found to save
+him, and in her prayers that night she began to seek it. But while
+she prayed, her heart was bowed over a great joy. She had a hero for
+a lover!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DOROTHEA CONFESSES
+
+
+She saw no more of him, and heard very little, before the Court Martial
+met. No one acquainted with the code of that age--so strait-laced in
+its proprieties, so full-blooded in its vices--will need to be told
+that she never dreamed of asking her brother's permission to visit the
+Prisoners' Infirmary. He reported--once a day, perhaps, and casually--
+that the patient was doing well. Dorothea ventured once to sound
+General Rochambeau, but the old aristocrat answered stiffly that he
+took no interest in _declasses_, and plainly hinted that, in his
+judgment, M. Raoul had sinned past pardon; which but added to her
+remorse. From time to time she obtained some hearsay news through
+Polly; but Polly's chief interest now lay in her approaching marriage.
+
+For the Commissary, while accepting Raoul's version of his capture, had
+an intuitive gift which saved him from wholly believing in it. Indeed,
+his conduct of the affair, if we consider the extent of his knowledge,
+was nothing less than masterly. Corporal Zeally found himself a
+sergeant within forty-eight hours, and within an hour of the
+announcement he and Polly were given an audience in the Bayfield
+library, with the result that Parson Milliton cried their banns in
+Axcester Church on the following Sunday, and the bride-elect received
+a month's wages and three weeks' notice of dismissal, with a hint that
+the reason for her short retention--to instruct her successor in Miss
+Dorothea's ways--was ostensible rather than real. With Raoul's fate he
+declined to meddle. "Here," he said in effect, "is my report, including
+the prisoner's confession. I do my simple duty in presenting it. But
+the young man was captured in my grounds; he was known to be a _protege_
+of my brother's. Finding him wounded and faint with loss of blood, we
+naturally did our best for him, and this again renders me perhaps too
+sympathetic. The law is the law, however, and must take its course."
+No attitude could have been more proper or have shown better feeling.
+
+So Raoul, who made a rapid recovery--barring the limp which he carried
+to the end of his days--was tried, condemned, and sentenced in the
+space of two hours. He stuck to his story, and the court had no
+alternative. Dartmoor or Stapleton inevitably awaited the prisoner who
+broke parole and was retaken. The night after his sentence Raoul was
+marched past the Bayfield gates under escort for Dartmoor. And Dorothea
+had not intervened.
+
+This, of course, proves that she was of no heroical fibre. She knew it.
+Night after night she had lain awake, vainly contriving plans for his
+deliverance; and either she lacked inventiveness or was too honest, for
+no method could she discover which avoided confession of the simple
+truth. As the days passed without catastrophe and without news save
+that her lover was bettering in hospital, she staved off the truth,
+trusting that the next night would bring inspiration. Almost she
+hoped--being quite unwise in such matters--that his sufferings would
+be accepted as cancelling his offence. So she played the coward. The
+blow fell on the evening when Endymion announced, in casual tones,
+that the Court Martial was fixed for the day after next.
+
+That night, indeed, brought something like an inspiration; and on the
+morrow she rode into Axcester and called upon Polly, now a bride of
+six days' standing and domiciled in one of the Westcote cottages in
+Church Street, a little beyond the bridge. For a call of state this
+was somewhat premature, but it might pass.
+
+Polly appeared to think it premature. Her furniture was topsy-turvy,
+and her hair in curl-papers; she obviously did not expect visitors,
+and resented this curtailment of the honeymoon. She showed it even
+when Dorothea, after apologies, came straight to the point:
+
+"Polly, I am very unhappy."
+
+"Indeed, Miss?"
+
+"You know that I must be, since M. Raoul is going to that horrible
+war-prison rather than let the truth be known."
+
+"But since you didn't encourage him, Miss--"
+
+"Of course I didn't encourage him to come," said Dorothea, quickly.
+
+"Why then it was his own fault, and he broke his word by breaking
+bounds."
+
+"Yes, strictly his parole was broken; but the meaning of parole is,
+that a prisoner promises to make no attempt to escape. M. Raoul never
+dreamed of escaping, yet that is the ground of his punishment."
+
+"Well," said Polly, "if he chooses to say he was escaping, I don't see
+how we--I mean, how you--can help."
+
+"Why, by telling the truth; and that's what we ought to do, though it
+was wrong of him to expose us to it."
+
+"To be sure it was," Polly assented.
+
+"But," urged Dorothea, "couldn't we tell the truth of what happened
+without anyone's wanting to know more? He gave you a note, which you
+took without guessing what it contained. He wished to have speech with
+me. Before you could give me the note and I could refuse to see him--
+as I should certainly have done--he had arrived. His folly deserves
+punishment, but no such punishment as being sent to Dartmoor."
+
+Polly eyed her ex-mistress shrewdly.
+
+"Have you burnt the note?" she asked.
+
+Dorothea, blushing to the roots of her hair, stammered:
+
+"No; I kept it--it was evidence for him, you see. I wish, now--"
+
+She broke off as Polly nodded her head.
+
+"I guessed you'd have kept it. And now you'll never make up your mind
+to burn it. You're too honest."
+
+"But, surely the note itself would not be called for?"
+
+"I don't know. Folks ask curious questions in courts of law, I've
+always heard. Beggin' your pardon, Miss, but your face tells too many
+tales, and anyone but a fool would ask for that note before he'd been
+dealing with you three minutes. If he didn't, he'd ask you what was in
+it. And then you'd be forced to tell lies--which you couldn't, to
+save your soul!"
+
+Dorothea knew this to be true. She reflected a moment. "I should
+decline to show it, or to answer."
+
+Mrs. Zeally thought it about time to assert herself. "Very good, Miss.
+And now, how about me? They'd ask me questions, too; and I'd have you
+consider, Miss Dorothea, that though not shaken down to it yet--not,
+as you might say, in a state to expect callers or make them properly
+welcome--I'm a respectable married woman. I don't mind confessing to
+you, Zeally isn't a comfortable man. He's pleased enough to be
+sergeant, though he don't quite know how it came about; and he's that
+sullen with brooding over it, that for sixpence he'd give me the strap
+to ease his feelings. I ain't complaining. Mr. Endymion chose to take
+me on the hop and hurry up the banns, and I'm going to accommodate
+myself to the man. He's three-parts of a fool, and you needn't fear
+but I'll manage him. But I ain't for taking no risks, and that I tell
+you fair."
+
+Dorothea was stunned. "You don't mean to say that Zeally suspects you?"
+
+"Why, of course he does!" said Polly. Prudence urged her to repeat
+that Zeally was three-parts of a fool; but, being nettled, she spoke
+the words uppermost: "Who d'ee think he'd suspect?"
+
+Dorothea, however, was too desperately dejected to feel the prick of
+this shaft. "You will not help me, then?" was all her reply to it.
+
+"Why, no, Miss! if you put it in that point-blank way. A married
+woman's got to think of her reputation first of all."
+
+Polly's attitude might be selfish, unfeeling; but the fundamental
+incapacity for gratitude in girls of Polly's class will probably
+surprise and pain their mistresses until the end of the world. After
+all, Polly was right. An attempt to clear Raoul by telling the
+superficial truth must involve terrible risks, and might at any turn
+enforce a choice between full confession and falsehood.
+
+Dorothea could not bring herself to lie, even heroically; and there
+would be no heroism in lying to save herself. On the other hand, the
+thought of a forced confession--it might he before a tribunal--was
+too hideous. No, the suggestion had been a mad one, and Polly had
+rightly thrown cold water on it. Also, it had demanded too much of
+Polly, who could not be expected to jeopardise her matrimonial
+prospects to right a wrong for which she was not in truth responsible.
+
+Dorothea loved a hero, but knew she was no heroine. She called herself
+a pitiful coward--unjustly, because, nurtured as she had been on the
+proprieties, surrounded all her days by men and women of a class most
+sensitive to public opinion, who feared the breath of scandal worse
+than a plague, confession for her must mean a shame unspeakable. What!
+Admit that she, Dorothea Westcote, had loved a French prisoner almost
+young enough to be her son! that she had given him audience at night!
+that he had been shot and captured beneath her window!
+
+Unjustly, too, she accused herself, because it is the decision, not
+the terror felt in deciding, which distinguishes the brave from the
+cowardly. If you doubt the event with Dorothea, the fault, must be
+mine. She was timid, but she came of a race which will endure anything
+rather than the conscious anguish of doing wrong.
+
+Nor, had her conscience needed them, did it lack reminders. Narcissus
+had been persuaded to send the drawings to London to be treated by
+lithography, a process of which he knew nothing, but to which M. Raoul,
+during his studies in Paris, had given much attention, and apparently
+not without making some discoveries--unimportant perhaps, and such as
+might easily reward an experimenter in an art not well past its
+infancy. At any rate, he had drawn up elaborate instructions for the
+London firm of printers, and when the proofs arrived with about a third
+of these instructions neglected and another third misunderstood,
+Narcissus was at his wits' end, aghast at the poorness of the
+impressions, yet not knowing in the least how to correct them.
+
+He gave Dorothea no peace with them. Evening after evening she was
+invited to pore upon the drawings over which she and her lover had bent
+together; to criticise here and offer a suggestion there; while every
+line revived a memory, inflicted a pang. What suggestion could she find
+save the one which must not be spoken?--to send, fetch the artist back
+from Dartmoor, and remedy all this, with so much beside!
+
+"But," urged Narcissus, "you and he spent hours together. I quite
+understood that he had explained the process to you, and on the
+strength of this I gave it too little attention. Of course, if one
+could have foreseen--" He broke off, and added with some testiness:
+"I'd give fifty pounds to have the fellow back, if only for ten
+minutes' talk."
+
+"But why couldn't we?" Dorothea asked suddenly, breathlessly.
+
+They were alone by the table under the bookcase. On the far side of
+the hall, before the fire, Endymion dozed after a long day with the
+partridges. Narcissus's words awoke a wild hope.
+
+"But why couldn't we?" she repeated, her voice scarcely louder than a
+whisper.
+
+"Well, that's an idea!" he chuckled. "Confound the fellow, he imposed
+on all of us! If we had only guessed what he intended, we might have
+signed a petition telling him how necessary he had made himself, and
+imploring him, for our sakes, to behave like a gentleman."
+
+"But supposing--supposing he was innocent--that he had never meant--"
+She put out a hand to lay it on her brother's. "Hush!" she could have
+cried; but it was too late.
+
+"Endymion!" Narcissus called across the room, jocosely.
+
+"Eh! What is it?" Endymion came out of his doze.
+
+"We're in a mess with these drawings, a complete mess; and we want
+Master Raoul fetched out of Dartmoor to set us right. Come now--as
+Commissary, what'll you take to work it for us? Fifty pounds has
+already been offered."
+
+Dorothea turned from the table with a sigh for her lost chance.
+
+"He'd like it," answered Endymion, grimly. "But, my dear fellow,"--
+he slewed himself in his chair for a look around the hall,--"pray
+moderate your tones. I particularly deprecate levity on such matters
+within possible hearing of the servants; that class of person never
+understands a joke."
+
+Narcissus rubbed the top of his head--a trick of his in perplexity.
+
+"But, seriously: it has only this moment occurred to me. Couldn't the
+drawings be conveyed to him, in due form, through the Commandant of the
+Prison? The poor fellow owes us no grudge. I believe he would be eager
+to do us this small service. And, really, they have made such a mess
+of the stones--"
+
+"Impossible! Out of the question! And I may say now, and once for all,
+that the mention of that unhappy youth is repugnant to me. By good
+fortune, we escaped being compromised by him; and I have refrained
+from reminding you that your patronage of him was, to say the least,
+indiscreet."
+
+"God bless me! You don't suggest, I hope, that I encouraged him to
+escape!"
+
+"I suggest nothing. But I am honestly glad to be quit of him, and take
+some satisfaction in remembering that I detested the fellow from the
+first. He had too much cleverness with his bad style, or, if you prefer
+it, was sufficiently like a gentleman to be dangerous. Pah! For his
+particular offence, I would have had the old hulks maintained in the
+Hamoaze, with all their severities; as it is, the posturer may find
+Dartmoor pretty stiff, but will yet have the consolation of herding
+with his betters."
+
+Strangely enough this speech did more to fix Dorothea's resolve than
+all she had read or heard of the rigours of the war-prison. Gently
+reared though she was, physical suffering seemed to her less
+intolerable than to be unjustly held in this extreme of scorn..
+This was the deeper wrong; and putting herself in her lover's place,
+feeling with his feelings, she knew it to be by far the deeper. In
+Dartmoor he shared the sufferings of men unfortunate but not
+despicable, punished for fighting in their country's cause. But here
+was a moral punishment, deserved by none but the vilest; and she had
+helped to bring it--was allowing it to rest--upon a hero!
+
+In the long watches of that night it never occurred to her that the
+brutality of her brother's contempt was over-done. And Endymion, not
+given to self-questioning at any time, was probably unconscious of a
+dull wrath revenging itself for many pin-pricks of Master Raoul's
+clever tongue. Endymion Westcote, like many pompous men, usually hurt
+somebody when he indulged in a joke, and for this cause, perhaps, had
+a nervous dislike of wit in others. Dull in taking a jest, but almost
+preternaturally clever in suspecting one, he had disliked Raoul's
+sallies in proportion as they puzzled him. The remembrance of them
+rankled, and this had been his bull-roar of revenge.
+
+He spent the next morning in his office; and returning at three in the
+afternoon, retired to the library to draw up the usual monthly report
+required of him as Commissary. He had been writing tor an hour or more,
+when Dorothea tapped at the door and entered.
+
+Endymion did not observe her pallor; indeed, he scarcely looked up.
+
+"Ah! You have come for a book? Make as little noise, then, as possible,
+that's a good soul. You interrupted me in a column of figures."
+
+He began to add them up afresh, tapping the table with the fingers of
+his left hand, as his custom was when counting. Dorothea waited. The
+addition made, he entered it, resting three shapely finger-tips on the
+table's edge for the number to be carried over.
+
+"I wish to speak with you particularly."
+
+He laid down his pen resignedly. Her voice was urgent, and he knew
+well enough that the occasion must be urgent when Dorothea interrupted
+his work.
+
+"Anything wrong?"
+
+"It--it's about M. Raoul."
+
+His eyebrows went up, but only to contract again upon a magisterial
+frown.
+
+"Really, after the request I was obliged to make to Narcissus last
+night--you were present, I believe? Is it possible that I failed to
+make plain my distaste?"
+
+"Ah, but listen! It is no question of distaste, but of a great wrong.
+He was not trying to escape; he told you an untruth, to--to save--"
+
+Endymion had picked up a paper-knife, and leaned back, tapping his
+teeth with it.
+
+"Do you know?" he said, "I suspected something of this kind from the
+first, though I had no idea you shared the knowledge. Zeally's
+cleverness struck me as a trifle too--ah--phenomenal for belief.
+I scented some low intrigue; and Polly's dismissal may indicate my
+pretty shrewd guess at the culprit."
+
+"But it was not Polly!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+Endymion sat bolt upright.
+
+"You must not blame Polly. It was I whom M. Raoul came to see that
+night."
+
+He stared at her, incredulous.
+
+"My dear Dorothea, are you quite insane?"
+
+"He wished to see me--to speak with me; he gave the girl a note for
+me. I knew nothing about it until I went upstairs that night, and found
+her at the boudoir window. M. Raoul was outside. He had arrived before
+she could deliver the message."
+
+"Quite so!" with a nasally derisive laugh. "And you really need me to
+point out how prettily those turtles were befooling you?"
+
+"Indeed, no; it was not that."
+
+He struck the table impatiently with the paper-knife.
+
+"My dear woman, do exert some common sense! What in the name of wonder
+could the fellow have to discuss with you at that hour? Your pardon if,
+finding no apparent limits to your innocence, I assume it to be
+illimitable, and point out that he would scarcely break bounds and play
+Romeo beneath the window of a middle-aged lady for the purpose of
+discussing water-colours with her, or the exploits of Vespasian."
+
+The taunt brought red to Dorothea's cheeks, and stung her into courage.
+
+"He came to see me," she persisted. Her voice dropped a little. "I had
+come to feel a regard for M. Raoul; and he--" She could not go on. Her
+eyes met her brother's for a moment, then fell before them.
+
+What she expected she could not tell. Certainly she did not expect what
+happened, and his sudden laughter smote her like a whip. It broke in a
+shout of high, incontrollable mirth, and he leaned back and shook in
+his chair until the tears streamed down his cheeks.
+
+"You!" he gasped. "You! Oh, oh, oh!"
+
+She stood beneath the scourge, silent. She felt it curl across and bite
+the very flesh, and thought it was killing her, Her bosom heaved.
+
+It ceased. He sat upright again, wiping his eyes.
+
+"But it's incredible!" he protested; "the scoundrel has fooled you all
+along. Yes, of course," he pondered; "that explains the success of the
+trick, which otherwise was clumsy beyond belief; in fact, its
+clumsiness puzzled me. But how was I to guess?" He pulled himself up on
+the edge of another guffaw. "Look here, Dorothea, be sensible. It's
+clear as daylight the fellow was after Polly, and made you his cats-
+paw. Face it, my dear; face it, and conquer your illusions. I
+understand it must cost you some suffering, but, after all, you must
+find some blame in yourself--in your heart, I mean, not in your
+conduct. Doubtless your conduct showed weakness, or he would never have
+dared--but, there, I can trust my sister. Face it; the thing's absurd!
+You, a woman of thirty-eight (or is it thirty-nine?), and he, if I may
+judge from appearances, young enough to be your son! Polly was his
+game--the deceitful little slut! You must see it for yourself. And
+after all, it's more natural. Immoral, I've no doubt--"
+
+He paused in the middle of his harangue. A parliamentary candidate
+(unsuccessful) for Axcester had once dared to poke fun at Endymion
+Westcote for having asserted, in a public speech, that indecency was
+worse than immorality. For the life of him Endymion could never see
+where the joke came in; but the fellow had illustrated it with such a
+wealth of humorous instances, and had kept his ignorant audience for
+twenty minutes in such fits of laughter, that he never afterwards
+approached the antithesis but he skirted it with a red face.
+
+And Dorothea?
+
+The scourge might cut into her heart; it could not reach the image of
+Raoul she shielded there. She knew her lover too well, and that he was
+incapable of this baseness. But the injurious charge, diverted from
+him, fell upon her own defences, and, breaking them, let in the cruel
+light at length on her passion, her folly. This was how the world
+would see it. . . . Yes! Raoul was right--there is no enemy
+comparable with Time. Looks, fortune, birth, breed, unequal hearts and
+minds--all these Love may confound and play with; but Time which
+divides the dead from the living, sets easily between youth and age a
+gulf which not only forbids love but derides:
+
+   Age, I do abhor thee;
+   Youth, I do adore thee;
+   O, my Love, my Love is young!
+
+She could give counsel, sympathy, care; could delight in his delights,
+hope in his hopes, melt with his woes, and, having wept a little, find
+comfort for them. She could thrill at his footsteps, blush at his
+salutation, sit happily beside him and talk or be silent, reading his
+moods. He might fill her waking day, haunt her dreams, in the end pass
+into prison for her sake, having crowned love with martyrdom. And the
+world would laugh as Endymion had laughed! Her hands went up to shut
+out the roar of it. A coarse amour with Polly--that could be
+understood. Polly was young. Polly . . .
+
+"What will you do?" she heard herself asking, and could scarcely
+believe the voice belonged to her.
+
+"Do? Why, if my theory be right--and I hope I've convinced you--I see
+no use in meddling. The girl is respectably married. It will cause her
+quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again. Her husband
+will have just ground for complaint, and it might--I need not point
+out--be a little awkward, eh?"
+
+For the first time in her life Dorothea regarded her brother with
+something like contempt. But the flash gave way to a look of weary
+resolve.
+
+"Then I must tell the truth--to others," she said.
+
+It confounded him for a moment. But although here was a new Dorothea,
+belying all experience, his instinct for handling men and women told
+him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even
+clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be
+a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to
+redden at his blunder.
+
+"You do not agree with my view?" he asked, tapping the table slowly.
+
+"I disbelieve it. I have no right to believe it, even if I had the
+power. He is in prison. You must help me to set him free. If not--"
+
+"He cannot, possibly return to Axcester."
+
+"Oh, what is that to me?" she cried with sudden impatience. Then her
+tone fell back to its dull level. "I have not been pleading for myself."
+
+"No, no: I understand." His brow cleared, as a man's who faces a bad
+business and resolves to go through with it. "Well, there is only one
+way to spare you and everyone. We must get him a cartel."
+
+"A cartel?"
+
+"Yes--get him exchanged, and sent home to his friends. The War Office
+owes me something, and will no doubt oblige me in a small affair like
+this without asking questions. Oh, certainly it can be managed. I will
+write at once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DARTMOOR
+
+
+Dorothea had the profoundest faith in her brother's ability. That he
+hit at once on this simple solution which had eluded her through many
+wakeful nights did not surprise her in the least. Nor did she doubt
+for a moment that he would manage it as he promised.
+
+But she could not thank him. He had beaten her spirit sorely--so
+sorely, that for days her whole body ached with the bruise. She did not
+accuse him: her one flash of contempt had lasted for an instant only,
+and the old habit of reverence quickly effaced it. But he had exposed
+her weakness; had forced her to see it, naked and pitiful, with no
+chivalry--either manly or brotherly--covering it; and seeing it with
+nothing to depend upon, she learned for the first time in her life the
+high, stern lesson of independence.
+
+She learned it unconsciously, but she never forgot it. And it is to
+Endymion's credit that he recognised the great alteration and allowed
+for it. He had driven her too far. She would never again be the same
+Dorothea. And never again by word or look did he remind her of that
+hour of abasement.
+
+An exchange of prisoners was not to be managed in a day, and would take
+weeks, perhaps six weeks or a couple of months. He discussed this with
+her, quietly, as a matter of business entrusted to him, explained what
+steps he had taken, what letters he had written; when he expected
+definite news from the War Office. She met him on the same ground.
+"Yes, he could not have done better." She trusted him absolutely.
+
+And in fact he had been better than his word. Ultimate success, to be
+sure, was certain. It were strange if Mr. Westcote, who had opened his
+purse to support a troop of Yeomanry, who held two parliamentary seats
+at the Government's service and two members at call to bully the War
+Office whenever he desired, who might at any time have had a baronetcy
+for the asking--it were strange indeed if Mr. Westcote could not
+obtain so trivial a favour as the exchange of a prisoner. He could do
+this, but he could not appreciably hurry the correspondence by which
+Pall Mall bargained a Frenchman in the forest of Dartmoor against an
+Englishman in the fortress of Briancon in the Hautes Alpes. Foreseeing
+delays, he had written privately to the Commandant at Dartmoor--a
+Major Sotheby, with whom he had some slight acquaintance--advising him
+of his efforts and requesting him to show the prisoner meanwhile all
+possible indulgence. The letter contained a draft, for ten pounds, to
+be spent upon small comforts at the Commandant's discretion; but
+M. Raoul was not to be informed of the donor, or of his approaching
+liberty.
+
+In theory--such was the routine--Raoul remained one of the Axcester
+contingent of prisoners, and all reports concerning him must pass
+through the Commissary's hands. In the last week of October, when
+brother and sister daily expected the cartel, arrived a report that
+the prisoner was in hospital with a sharp attack of pleurisy. Major
+Sotheby added a private note:-
+
+_"I feared yesterday that the exchange would come too late for him;
+but to-day the Medical Officer, who has just left me, speaks hopefully.
+I have no doubt, however, that a winter in this climate would be fatal.
+The fellow's lungs are breaking down, and even if they could stand the
+fogs, the cold must finish him."_
+
+Dorothea stood by a window in the library when Endymion read this out
+to her; the very window through which she had been gazing that spring
+morning when Raoul first kissed her. To-day the first of the winter's
+snow fell gently, persistently, out of a leaden and windless sky.
+
+She turned. "I must go to him," she said.
+
+"But to what purpose--"
+
+"Oh, you may trust me!"
+
+"My dear girl, that was not in my mind." He spoke gently. "But until
+the warrant arrives--"
+
+"We will give it until to-morrow; by every account it should reach us
+to-morrow. You shall take it with me. I must see him once more; only
+once--in your presence, if you wish."
+
+Next morning they rode into the town together, an hour before the
+mail's arrival. Endymion alighted at the Town House to write a business
+letter or two before strolling down to the post office. Dorothea
+cantered on to the top of the hill, and then walked Mercury to and fro,
+while she watched the taller rise beyond. The snow had ceased falling;
+but a crisp north wind skimmed the drifts and powdered her dark habit.
+
+Twice she pulled out her watch; but the coach was up to time in spite
+of the heavy roads; and as it topped the rise she reined Mercury to the
+right-about and cantered back to await it. Already the street had begun
+to fill as usual; and, as usual, there was General Rochambeau picking
+his way along the pavement to present himself for the Admiral's
+letter--the letter which never arrived.
+
+Would _her_ letter never arrive?
+
+He halted on the kerb by her stirrup. She asked after the Admiral's
+health.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, if ever he leaves his bed again, it will be a
+miracle."
+
+She was not listening. Age, age again!--it makes all the difference.
+Here came the coach--did it hold a letter for Raoul? Raoul was young.
+
+The coach rolled by with less noise than usual, on the carpet of snow
+churned brown with traffic. As it passed, the guard lifted his horn and
+blew cheerily. She followed, telling herself it was a good omen. During
+the long wait outside the post office she rebuked herself more than
+once for building a hope upon it. Name after name was called, and at
+each call a prisoner pushed forward to the doorway for his letter. She
+caught sight of the General on the outskirts of the crowd. Her brother
+would not come out until every letter had been distributed.
+
+But when he appeared in the doorway she read the good news in his face.
+He made his way briskly towards her, the prisoners falling back to
+give passage.
+
+"Right; it has come," he said. "Trot away home and have the valises
+packed, while I run into 'The Dogs' and order the chaise."
+
+Once clear of the town, she galloped. There was little need to hurry,
+for her own valise had been packed overnight.
+
+Having sent Mudge to attend to her brother's, she ran to Narcissus'
+room--his scriptorium, as he called it.
+
+Narcissus was at home to-day, busy with the cellar accounts. He took
+stock twice a year and composed a report in language worthy of a
+survey of the Roman Empire. Before he could look up, Dorothea had
+kissed him on the crown of his venerable head.
+
+"Such news, dear! Endymion has ordered a chaise from 'The Dogs,' and
+is going to take me to Dartmoor!"
+
+"Dartmoor--God bless my soul!" He rubbed his head, and added with a
+twinkle: "Why, what have you been doing?"
+
+"Endymion has a cartel of exchange for M. Raoul, and we are to carry
+it."
+
+"Ah, so that is what you two have been conspiring over? I smelt a rat
+somewhere. But, really, this is delightful of you--delightful of you
+both. Only, why on earth should you be carrying the release yourselves,
+in this weather."
+
+"He is very ill," said Dorothea, seriously.
+
+"Indeed? Poor fellow, poor fellow. Still, that scarcely explains--"
+
+"And you will be good, and take your meals regularly when Mudge beats
+the gong? And you won't sit up late and set fire to the house? But I
+must run off and tell everyone to take care of you."
+
+She kissed him again, and was half-way down the corridor before he
+called after her:
+
+"Dorothea, Dorothea! the drawings!"
+
+"Ah, to be sure; I forgot," she murmured, as he thrust the parcel into
+her hand.
+
+"Forgot? Forgot the drawings? But, God bless my soul!--"
+
+He passed his hand over his grey hairs and stared down the corridor
+after her.
+
+The roads were heavy to start, with, and beyond Chard they grew
+heavier. At Honiton, which our travellers reached at midnight, it was
+snowing; and Dorothea, when the sleepy chamber-maid aroused her at
+dawn, looked out upon a forbidding world of white. The postboys were
+growling, and she half feared that Endymion would abandon the journey
+for the day. But if he lacked her zeal, he had the true Englishman's
+hatred of turning back. She, who had known him always for a master of
+men, learned a new awe of her splendid brother. He took command; he
+cross-examined landlord and postboys, pooh-poohed their objections,
+extracted from them in half-a-dozen curt questions more information
+than, five minutes before, they were conscious of possessing, to judge
+from the scratching of heads which produced it; finally, he handed
+Dorothea into the chaise, sprang in himself, and closed discussion
+with a slam of the door. They were driven off amid the salaams of
+ostler, boots, waiter, and two chambermaids, among whom he had
+scattered largess with the lordliest hand.
+
+So the chaise ploughed through Exeter to Moreton Hampstead, where they
+supped and rested for another night. But before dawn they were off
+again. Snow lay in thick drifts on the skirts of the great moor, and
+snow whirled about them as they climbed, until day broke upon a howling
+desert, across which Dorothea peered but could discern no features.
+Not leagues but years divided Bayfield from this tableland, high over
+all the world, uninhabited, without tree or gate or hedge. Her eyes
+were heavy with lack of sleep, smarting with the bite of the north
+wind, which neither ceased nor eased until, towards ten o'clock, the
+carriage began to lumber downhill towards Two Bridges, under the lee of
+Crockern Tor. Beyond came a heavy piece of collar work, the horses
+dropping to a walk as they heaved through the drifts towards a
+depression between two tors closing the view ahead. Dorothea's eyes,
+avoiding the wind, were fixed on the tor to the left, when Endymion
+touched her hand and pointed towards the base of the other. There,
+grey--almost black--against the white hillside, a mass of masonry
+loomed up through the weather; the great circle of the War Prison.
+
+The road did not lead them to it direct. They must halt first at the
+bare village of Prince Town, and drink coffee and warm themselves at
+the "Plume of Feathers Inn," before facing the last few hundred yards
+beneath the lee of North Hessary. But a little before noon, Dorothea--
+still with a sense of being lifted on a platform miles above the world
+she knew--alighted before a tremendous archway of piled granite set
+in a featureless wall, and closed with a sheeted gate of iron. A grey-
+coated sentry, pacing here in front of his snow-capped box, challenged
+and demanded their business.
+
+"Visitors for the Commandant!" The sentry tugged at an iron bellpull,
+and a bell tolled twice within. Dorothea's feet were half-frozen in
+spite of her wraps--she stamped them in the snow while she studied the
+gateway and the enormous blocks which arched it, unhewn save for two
+words carved in Roman capitals--"PARCERE SUBJECTIS."
+
+A key turned in the wicket. "Visitors for the Commandant!" They
+stepped through, and after pausing a moment while the porter shot the
+lock again behind them, followed him across the yard to the
+Commandant's quarters.
+
+The outer wall of the great War Prison enclosed a circle of thirty
+acres; within it a second wall surrounded an acre in which stood the
+five rectangular blocks of the prison proper, with two slightly smaller
+buildings--the one a hospital, the other set apart for the petty
+officers; and between the inner and outer walls ran a _via militaris_,
+close on a mile in circumference, constantly paraded by the guard, and
+having raised platforms from which the sentinels could overlook the
+inner wall and the area. The area was not completely circular, since,
+where it faced the great gate, a segment had been cut out of it for the
+Commandant's quarters and outbuildings and the entrance yard, across
+which, our travellers now followed their guide.
+
+
+The Commandant hurried out from his office to welcome them--a bustling
+little officer with sandy hair and the kindliest possible face; a
+trifle self-important, obviously proud of his prison, and, after a
+fashion, of his prisoners too; anxiously, elaborately polite in his
+manner, especially towards Dorothea.
+
+"Major Westcote!"--he gave Endymion his full title--"My dear sir,
+this is indeed--And Miss Westcote?" he bowed as he was introduced,
+"Delighted--honoured! But what a journey! You must be famished,
+positively; you will be wanting luncheon at once--yes, really you must
+allow me. No? A glass of sherry, then, and a biscuit at least . . ."
+He ran to the door, called to his orderly to bring some glasses, and
+came back rubbing his hands. "It's an ill wind, as they say . . ."
+
+"We have come with the order about which we have corresponded."
+
+"For that poor fellow Raoul?" The Commandant nodded gaily and smiled;
+and Dorothea, who had been watching his face, felt the load dissolve
+and roll off her heart, as a pile of snow slides from a bough in the
+sunshine. "He is better, I am glad to report--out of bed and fairly
+convalescent indeed. But I hope my message did not alarm you
+needlessly. It was touch-and-go with him for twenty-four hours; still,
+he was bettering when I wrote. And to bring you all this way, and in
+such weather!"
+
+"My sister and I," explained Endymion, "take a particular interest in
+his case."
+
+But the voluble officer was not so easily silenced.
+
+"So, to be sure, I gathered." He bowed gallantly to Dorothea. "'O
+woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please'--not,
+of course, that I attribute any such foibles to Miss Westcote, but for
+the sake of the conclusion."
+
+"Can we see him?"
+
+"Eh? Before luncheon? Oh, most assuredly, if you wish it. He has been
+transferred to the Convalescents' Ward. We will step across at once."
+He drew from his pocket a small master-key, attached by a steel chain
+to his belt, and blew into the wards thoughtfully while he studied the
+paper handed to him by Endymion. "Quite in order, of course. No doubt,
+you and Miss Westcote would prefer to break the good news to him in
+private? Yes, yes; I will have him sent up to the Consulting Room. The
+Doctor has finished his morning rounds, and you will be quite alone
+there."
+
+He picked up his cap and escorted them out and across the court to the
+gate of the main prison. Beyond this Dorothea found herself in a vast
+snowy yard, along two sides of which ran covered ways or piazzas open
+to the air, but faced with iron bars, and behind these bars flitted the
+forms of the prisoners at exercise, stamping the flagged pavement to
+keep their starved blood in circulation. At a sight of the Commandant
+with his two visitors--so small a spectacle had power to divert them--
+all this movement, this stamping, was hushed suddenly. Voices broke
+into chatter; faces appeared between the bars and stared.
+
+"Yes," said the Commandant, reading Dorothea's thought, "a large family
+to be responsible for! How many would you guess, now?"
+
+"A thousand, at least," she murmured.
+
+"Six thousand! Each of those blocks yonder will accommodate fifteen
+hundred men. And then there is the hospital--usually pretty full at
+this season, I regret to say. Come, I won't detain you; but really in
+passing you must have a look at one of our dormitories."
+
+He threw open a door, and she gazed in upon a long-drawn avenue of iron
+pillars slung with double tiers of hammocks. The place seemed clean
+enough: at the far end of the vista a fatigue gang of prisoners was
+busy with pails and brushes; but either it had not been thoroughly
+ventilated, or the dense numbers packed in it for so many hours a day
+had given the building an atmosphere of its own, warm and unpleasant,
+if not precisely foetid, after the pure, stinging air of the moorland.
+
+"We can sleep seven hundred here," said the Commandant; "and another
+dormitory of the same size runs overhead. The top story they use as a
+promenade and for indoor recreation." He pointed to a number of grilles
+set in the wall at the back, at equal distances. "For air," he
+explained, "and also for keeping watch on _messieurs_. Yes, we find
+that necessary. Behind each is a small chamber, hollowed most
+scientifically, quite a little temple of acoustics. If Miss Westcote,
+now, would care to step into one and listen, while I stand below with
+the Major and converse in ordinary tones--"
+
+"No, no," Dorothea declined, hurriedly, and with a shiver.
+
+It hurt her to think of Raoul herded among seven hundred miserables in
+this endless barrack, his every movement overlooked, his smallest
+speech overheard, by an eaves-dropping sentry.
+
+"I think, Endymion chimed in, my sister feels her long journey, and
+would be glad to get our business over."
+
+"Ah, to be sure--a thousand pardons!"
+
+The Commandant shut the door and piloted them across to the hospital
+block. Here on the threshold the same warm, acrid atmosphere assailed
+Dorothea's nostrils, and almost choked her breathing. Their guide led
+the way up a flight of stone steps to the first floor, and down a
+whitewashed corridor, lit along one side with narrow barred casements.
+A little more than half-way down the corridor the blank wall facing
+these casements was pierced by a low arched passage. Into this burrow
+the Commandant dived; and, standing outside, they heard a key turned
+in a lock. He reappeared and beckoned to them.
+
+"From the gallery here," he whispered, "you look right down into the
+Convalescent Ward."
+
+Through the iron bars of the gallery Dorothea caught a glimpse of a
+long bare room, with twenty or thirty dejected figures in suits and
+caps of greyish-blue flannel, huddled about a stove. Some were playing
+at cards, others at dominoes. The murmur of their voices ascended and
+hummed in the little passage.
+
+"Hist! Your friend is below there, if you care to have a peep at him."
+
+But Dorothea had already drawn back. All this spying and listening
+revolted her. The polite Commandant noted the movement.
+
+"You prefer that he should be fetched at once?" He stepped past them
+into the corridor. "Smithers!" he called. "Smithers!"
+
+A hospital orderly appeared at a door almost opposite the passage,
+and saluted.
+
+"Run down to the Convalescent Ward and fetch up Number Two-six-seven-
+two.--I know the number of each of my children. I never make a
+mistake," he confided in Dorothea's ear. "As quick as you can, please!
+Stay; you may add that some visitors have called and wish to speak
+with him."
+
+The orderly saluted again, and hurried off.
+
+"You wish, of course, to see him alone together?"
+
+"I think," answered Endymion, slowly, "my sister would prefer a word
+or two with him alone."
+
+"Certainly. Will you step into the surgery, Miss Westcote?" He
+indicated the door at which the orderly had appeared. "Smithers will
+not take two minutes in fetching the prisoner; and perhaps, if you
+will excuse us, a visit to the hospital itself will repay your brother.
+We are rather proud of our sanitation here: a glance over our
+arrangements--five minutes only--"
+
+Endymion, at a nod from Dorothea, permitted himself to be led away by
+the inexorable man.
+
+She watched them to the end of the corridor, and had her hand on the
+surgery door to push it open, when a voice from below smote her ears.
+
+"Number Two-six-seven-two to come to the surgery at once, to see
+visitors!"
+
+The voice rang up through the little passage behind her. She turned;
+the door at the end of it stood half-open; beyond it she saw the bars
+of the gallery, and through these a space of whitewashed wall at the
+end of the ward.
+
+She was turning again, when a babble of voices answered the orderly's
+announcement. "Raoul! Raoul!" half-a-dozen were calling, and then one
+spoke up sharp and distinct:
+
+"Tenez, mon bonhomme, ce sera votre _gilet_, a coup sur!"
+
+A burst of laughter followed.
+
+"C'est son _gilet_--his little Waistcoat--a chauffer la poitrine--"
+
+"Des visiteurs, dit il? Voyons, coquin, n'y-a-t-il pas par hasard une
+visiteuse de la partie."
+
+"Une 'Waistcoat' par example?--de quarante ans environ, le drap un
+peu rape . . ."
+
+"Qui se nomme Dorothee--ce que veut dire le gilet dieudonne . . ."
+
+"Easy now!" the Orderly's voice remonstrated. "Easy, I tell you, ye
+born mill-clappers! There's a lady in the party, if that's what you're
+asking."
+
+Dorothea put out a hand against the jamb of the surgery door, to
+steady herself She heard the smack of a palm below and some one uttered
+a serio-comic groan.
+
+"Enfonce! Il m'a parie dix sous qu'elle viendrait avant le jour de Pan,
+et aussi du tabac avec tout le Numero Six. Nous en ferons la dot de
+Mademoiselle!" The fellow burst out singing--
+
+   "J'ai du bon tabac
+   Dans ma tabatiere."
+
+"Dites donc, mon petit,"--but the cheerful epithet he bestowed on
+Raoul is unquotable here--"Elle ne fume pas, votre Anglaise? Elle
+n'est pas Creole, c'est entendu."
+
+Dorothea had stepped into the surgery. A small round table stood in the
+middle of the room; she caught at the edge of it and rested so for a
+moment, for the walls seemed to be swaying and she durst not lift her
+hands to shut out the roars of laughter. They rang in her ears and
+shouted and stunned her. Her whole body writhed.
+
+The hubbub below sank to a confused murmur. She heard footsteps in the
+corridor--the firm tramp of the orderly followed by the shuffle of
+list slippers.
+
+"Number Two-six-seven-two is outside, ma'am. Am I to show him in?"
+
+She bent her head and moved towards the fireplace. She heard him
+shuffle in, and the door shut behind him. Still she did not turn.
+
+"Dorothea!"--his voice shook with joy, with passion. How well she
+knew that deep Provencal tremolo. She could have laughed aloud in her
+bitterness.
+
+"Dorothea!"
+
+She faced him at length. He stood there, stretching out both hands to
+her. He was handsome as ever, but pale and sadly pinched. Beyond all
+doubt he had suffered. His grey-blue hospital suit hung about him in
+folds.
+
+In her eyes he read at once that something was wrong--but without
+comprehending. "You sent for me," he stammered; "you have come--"
+
+She found her voice and, to her surprise, it was quite firm.
+
+"Yes, we have brought your release," she said; and, watching his eyes,
+saw the joy leap up in them, saw it quenched the next instant as he
+composed his features to a fond solicitude for her.
+
+"But you?" he murmured. "What has happened? Tell me--no, do not draw
+away! Your hand, at least."
+
+Contempt, for herself or for him, gave her a moment's strength, but it
+broke down again.
+
+"It is horrible!" was all she answered and looked about her with a
+shiver.
+
+"Ah, the place frightens you! Well," he laughed, reassuringly, "it
+frightened me at first. But for the thought of you, dearest, to
+comfort--"
+
+She stepped past him and opened the door. For a moment a wild notion
+seized him that she was escaping, and he put out an imploring hand;
+but he saw that, with her hand on the jamb, she was listening, and he,
+too, listened. The voices in the Convalescent Ward came up to them,
+scarcely muffled, through the low passage, and with them a cackling
+laugh. Then he understood.
+
+Their eyes met. He bowed his head.
+
+"Nevertheless, I have suffered."
+
+He said it humbly, after many seconds, and in a voice so low that it
+seemed a second or two before she heard. For the first time she put
+out a hand and touched his sleeve.
+
+"Yes, you have suffered, and for me. Let me go on believing that. You
+did a noble thing, and I shall try to remember you by it--to remember
+that you were capable of it. 'It was for my sake,' I shall say, and
+then I shall be proud. Oh, yes, sometimes I shall be very proud! But
+in love--"
+
+Her voice faltered, and he looked up sharply.
+
+"In love"--she smiled, but passing faintly--"it's the little things,
+is it not? It's the little things that count."
+
+She touched his sleeve again, and passed into the room, leaving him
+there at a standstill, as Endymion and the Commandant came round the
+corner at the far end of the corridor.
+
+"Excuse me," said Endymion, and, stepping past Raoul without a glance,
+looked into the surgery. After a moment he shut the door quietly, and,
+standing with his back to it, addressed the prisoner: "I perceive, sir,
+that my sister has told you the news. We have effected an exchange for
+you, and the Commandant tells me that to-morrow, if the roads permit,
+you will be sent down to Plymouth and released. It is unnecessary for
+you to thank me; it would, indeed, be offensive. I wish you a safe
+passage home, and pray heaven to spare me the annoyance of seeing your
+face again."
+
+As Raoul bowed and moved away, dragging his feet weakly in their list
+slippers, Mr. Westcote turned to the Commandant, who during this
+address had kept a discreet distance.
+
+"With your leave, we will continue our stroll, and return for my
+sister in a few minutes."
+
+The Commandant jumped at the suggestion.
+
+
+Dorothea heard their footsteps retreating, and knew that her brother's
+thoughtfulness had found her this short respite. She had dropped into
+the orderly's chair, and now bowed her head upon the prison doctor's
+ledger, which lay open on the table before it.
+
+"Oh, my love! How could you do it? How could you? How could you?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE NEW DOROTHEA
+
+
+Two hours later they set out on their homeward journey.
+
+The Commandant, still voluble, escorted them to the gate. As Dorothea
+climbed into the chaise and Endymion shook up the rugs and cushions, a
+large brown-paper parcel rolled out upon the snow. She gave a little
+cry of dismay:
+
+"The drawings!"
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"We forgot to deliver them."
+
+"Oh, confound the things!"
+
+Endymion was for pitching them back into the chaise.
+
+"But no!" she entreated. "Why, Narcissus believes it was to deliver
+them that we came!"
+
+So the Commandant amiably charged himself to hand the parcel to
+M. Raoul, and waved his adieux with it as the chaise rolled away.
+
+Of what had passed between Dorothea and Raoul at the surgery door
+Endymion knew nothing; but he had guessed at once, and now was assured
+by the tone in which she had spoken of the drawings, that the chapter
+was closed, the danger past. Coming, brother and sister had scarcely
+exchanged a word for miles together. Now they found themselves chatting
+without effort about the landscape, the horses' pace, the Commandant
+and his hospitality, the arrangements of the prison, and the prospects
+of a cosy dinner at Moreton Hampstead. It was all the smallest of small
+talk, and just what might be expected of two reputable middle-aged
+persons returning in a post-chaise from a mild jaunt; yet beneath it
+ran a current of feeling. In their different ways, each had been moved;
+each had relied upon the other for a degree of help which could not be
+asked in words, and had not been disappointed.
+
+Now that Dorothea's infatuation had escaped all risk of public
+laughter, Endymion could find leisure to admire her courage in
+confessing, in persisting until the wrong was righted, and, now at the
+last, in shutting the door upon the whole episode.
+
+And, now at the last, having shut the door upon it, Dorothea could
+reflect that her brother, too, had suffered. She knew his pride, his
+sensitiveness, his mortal dread of ridicule. In the smart of his wound
+he had turned and rent her cruelly, but had recovered himself and
+defended her loyally from worse rendings. She remembered, too, that he
+had distrusted Raoul from the first.
+
+He had been right. But had she been wholly wrong?
+
+In the dusk of the fifth evening after their departure the chaise
+rolled briskly in through Bayfield great gates and up the snowy drive.
+Almost noiselessly though it came, Mudge had the door thrown wide and
+stood ready to welcome them, with Narcissus behind in the comfortable
+glow of the hall.
+
+Dorothea's limbs were stiff, and on alighting she steadied herself for
+a moment by the chaise-door before stepping in to kiss her brother. In
+that moment her eyes took one backward glance across the park and
+rested on the lights of Axcester glimmering between the naked elms.
+
+"Well," demanded Narcissus, after exchange of greetings, "and what did
+he say about the drawings?"
+
+Dorothea had not expected the question in this form, and parried it
+with a laugh:
+
+"You and your drawings! I declare"--she turned to Endymion--"he has
+been thinking of them all the time, and affects no concern in our
+adventures!"
+
+"Which, nevertheless, have been romantic to the last degree," he added,
+playing up to her.
+
+"My dear Dorothea--" Narcissus expostulated.
+
+"But you are not going to evade me by any such tricks," she
+interrupted, sternly; "for that is what it comes to. I left you with
+the strictest orders to take care of yourself, and you ought to know
+that I shall answer nothing until you have been catechised. What have
+you been eating?"
+
+"My _dear_ Dorothea!"
+
+Narcissus gazed helplessly at Mudge; but Mudge had been seized with a
+flurry of his own, and misinterpreted the look as well as the stern
+question.
+
+"I--I reckon 'tis _me_, Miss," he confessed. "Being partial to onions,
+and taking that liberty in Mr. Endymion's absence, knowing his dislike
+of the effluvium--"
+
+Such are the pitfalls of a guilty conscience on the one hand, and, on
+the other, of being unexpectedly clever.
+
+An hour later, at dinner, Narcissus was informed that the drawings had
+been conveyed to M. Raoul, who, doubtless, would return them with
+hints for correction.
+
+"But had he nothing to say at the time?"
+
+"For my part," said Endymion, sipping his wine, "I addressed but one
+sentence to him; and Dorothea, I daresay, exchanged but half a dozen.
+Considering the shortness of the interview, and that our mission--at
+least, our ostensible mission"--Endymion glanced at Dorothea, with a
+smile at his own _finesse_--"was to carry him news of his release,
+you will admit--"
+
+"Oh--ah!--to be sure; I had forgotten the release," muttered
+Narcissus, and was resigned.
+
+"By the way," Dorothea asked, after a short pause, "what is happening
+at 'The Dogs' tonight? All the windows are lit up in the Orange Room.
+I saw it as I stepped out of the chaise."
+
+"Yes; I have to tell you"--Narcissus turned towards his brother--
+"that during your absence another of the prisoners has found his
+discharge--the old Admiral."
+
+"Dead?"
+
+"He died this morning: but you knew, of course, it was only a question
+of days. Rochambeau was with him at the last. He has shown great
+devotion."
+
+"You have made all arrangements, of course?" For Narcissus was Acting
+Commissary in his brother's absence.
+
+"I rode in at once on hearing the news, which Zeally brought before
+daylight; and found the Lodge"--this was a Masonic Lodge formed among
+the prisoners, and named by them _La Paix Desiree_--"anxious to pay
+him something more than the full rites. With my leave they have hired
+the Orange Room, and turned it into a _chapelle ardente_; and there, I
+believe, he is reposing now, poor old fellow."
+
+"He has no kith nor kin, I understand."
+
+"None. He was never married, and his relatives went in the Terror--
+the most of them (so Rochambeau tells me) in a single week."
+
+Dorothea had heard the same story from the General and from Raoul. To
+this old warrior his Emperor had been friends, kindred, wife, and
+children--nay, almost God. He had enjoyed Napoleon's favour, and
+followed his star from the days of the Directory: in that favour and
+the future of France beneath that star his hopes had begun and ended.
+His private ambitions he had resigned without a word on the day when
+he put to sea out of Brest, under order from Paris, to perform a feat
+he knew to be impossible, with ships ill-found, under-manned, and half-
+victualled by cheating contractors: and he sailed cheerfully, believing
+himself sacrificed to some high purpose of his master's. When, the
+sacrifice made, he learned that the contractors slandered him to cover
+their own villainy, and that Napoleon either believed them or was
+indifferent, his heart broke. Too proud at first, he had ended by
+drawing up a statement and forwarding it from his captivity, with a
+demand for an enquiry. The answer to this was--the letter which never
+came.
+
+Dorothea thought of the room where she had danced and been happy: the
+many lights, the pagan figures merrymaking on the panels, the goddess
+on the ceiling with her cupids and scattered roses, and, in the centre
+of it all, that dead face, incongruous and calm.
+
+How small had been her tribulation beside his! And it was all over for
+him now--wages taken, account sealed up for judgment, _parole_ ended,
+and no heir to trouble over him or his good name.
+
+
+Next morning she rode into Axcester, as well to do some light shopping
+as because it seemed an age since her last visit, which, to be sure,
+was absurd, and she knew it. Happening to meet General Rochambeau, she
+drew rein and very gently offered her condolence on the loss of his
+old friend.
+
+The General pressed her hand gratefully.
+
+"Ah, never pity him, Mademoiselle. He carries a good pass for the
+Elysian Fields."
+
+"And that is--?"
+
+"The Emperor's _tabatiere_: and, my faith! Miss Dorothea, there will be
+sneezings in certain quarters when he opens it there.
+
+  "Il a du bon tabac
+   Dans sa tabatiere
+
+"has the Admiral. He had for you (if I may say it) a quite extraordinary
+respect and affection. The saints rest his brave soul!"
+
+The General lifted his tricorne. He never understood the tide of red
+which surged over Dorothea's face; but she conquered it, and went on
+to surprise him further:
+
+"I heard of this only last night. We have been visiting Dartmoor, my
+brother and I, with a release for--for that M. Raoul."
+
+"So I understood." He noted that her confusion had gone as suddenly as
+it came.
+
+"But since I am back in time, and it appears I was so fortunate as to
+win his regard, I would ask to see him--if it be permitted, and I may
+have your escort."
+
+"Certainly, Mademoiselle. You will, perhaps, wish to consult your
+brother though?"
+
+"I see no necessity," she answered.
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The General was not the only one to discover a new and firmer note in
+Dorothea's voice. Life at Bayfield slipped back into its old
+comfortable groove, but the brothers fell--and one of them
+consciously--into a habit of including her in their conversations and
+even of asking her advice. One day there arrived a bulky parcel for
+Narcissus; so bulky indeed and so suspiciously heavy, that it bore
+signs of several agitated official inspections, and nothing short of
+official deference to Endymion (under cover of whom it was addressed)
+could account for its having come through at all. For it came from
+France. It contained a set of the Bayfield drawings exquisitely cut in
+stone; and within the cover was wrapped a lighter parcel addressed to
+Miss Dorothea Westcote--a rose-tree, with a packet of seeds tied
+about its root.
+
+No letter accompanied the gift, at the sentimentality of which she
+found herself able to smile. But she soaked the root carefully in warm
+water, and smiled again at herself, as she planted it at the foot of
+the glacis beneath her boudoir window--the very spot where Raoul had
+fallen. Against expectation--for the journey had sorely withered it--
+the plant throve. She lived to see it grown into a fine Provence rose,
+draping the whole south-east corner of Bayfield with its yellow bloom.
+
+"After all," she said one afternoon, stepping back in the act of
+pruning it, "provided one sees things in their right light and is
+not a fool--"
+
+But this was long after the time of which we are telling.
+
+Folks no longer smile at sentiment. They laugh it down: by which,
+perhaps, no great harm would be done if their laughter came through the
+mind; but it comes through the passions, and at the best chastises one
+excess by another--a weakness by a rage, which is weakness at its
+worst. I fear Dorothea may be injured in the opinion of many by the
+truth--which, nevertheless, has to be told--that her recovery was
+helped not a little by sentiment. What? Is a poor lady's heart to be
+in combustion for a while and then--pf!--the flame expelled at a
+blast, with all that fed it? That is the heroic cure, no doubt: but
+either it kills or leaves a room swept and garnished, inviting devils.
+In short it is the way of tragedy, and for tragedy Dorothea had no
+aptitude at all. She did what she could--tidied up.
+
+For an instance.--She owned a small book which had once belonged to a
+namesake of hers--a Dorothea Westcote who had lived at the close of
+the seventeenth and opening of the eighteenth centuries, a grand-
+daughter of the first Westcote of Bayfield, married (so said the family
+history) in 1704 to a squire from across the Devonshire border. The
+book was a slender one, bound in calf, gilt-edged, and stamped with a
+gold wreath in the centre of each cover. Dorothea called it an album;
+but the original owner had simply written in, "Dorothea Westcote, her
+book," on the first page, with the date 1687 below, and filled four-and-
+twenty of its blank pages with poetry (presumably her favourite pieces),
+copied in a highly ornate hand. Presumably also she had wearied of the
+work, let the book lie, and coming to it later, turned it upside down
+and started with a more useful purpose: for three pages at the end
+contained several household recipes in the same writing grown severer,
+including "Garland Wine (Mrs. Massiter's Way)" and "A good Cottage Pie
+for a Pore Person."
+
+Now the family history left no doubt that in 1687 this Dorothy had been
+a bare fifteen years old; and although some of the entries must have
+been made later (for at least two of them had not been composed at the
+time), the bulk of the poems proved her a sprightly young lady whenever
+she transcribed them. Indeed, some were so very free in calling a spade
+a spade, that our Dorothea, having annexed the book, years ago, on the
+strength of her name, and dipped within, had closed it in sudden virgin
+terror and thrust it away at the back of her wardrobe.
+
+There it had lain until disinterred in the hurried search for linen for
+Mr. Raoul's wound. Next morning Dorothea was on the point of hiding it
+again, when, as she opened the covers idly, her eyes fell on these lines
+
+   "But at my back I alwaies hear
+   Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
+   And yonder all before me lie
+   Desarts of vast Eternitie . . ."
+
+She read on. The poem, after all, turned out to be but a lover's appeal
+to his mistress to give over coyness and use time while she might; but
+Dorothea wondered why its solemn language should have hit her
+namesake's fancy, and, turning a few more pages, discovered that this
+merry dead girl had chosen and copied out other verses which were more
+than solemn. How had she dug these gloomy gems out of Donne, Ford,
+Webster, and set them here among loose songs and loose epigrams from
+_Wit's Remembrancer_ and the like? for gems they were, though Dorothea
+did not know it nor whence they came. Dorothea had small sense of
+poetry: it was the personal interest which led her on. To be sure the
+little animal (she had already begun to construct a picture of her)
+might have secreted these things for no more reason than their beauty,
+as a squirrel will pick up a ruby ring and hide it among his nuts.
+But why were they, all so darkly terrible? Had she, being young, been
+afraid to die? Rather it seemed as if now and then, in the midst of
+her mirth, she had paused and been afraid to live.
+
+And in the end she had married a Devonshire squire, which on the face
+of it is no darkly romantic thing to do. But it was over the maiden
+that our Dorothea pondered, until by and by the small shade took
+features and a place in her leisure time: a very companionable shade,
+though tantalising; and innocent, though given to mischievously
+sportive hints. Dorothea sometimes wondered what her own fate would
+have been, with this naughtiness in her young blood--and this
+seriousness.
+
+It was sentiment, of course; but it is also a fact that this ghost of
+a kinswoman brought help to her. For such a hurt as hers the specific
+is to get away from self and look into such human thought as is kindly
+yet judicial. Some find this help in philosophy, many more in wise
+Dorothea had no philosophy, and no human being to consult; for
+admirably as Endymion had behaved, he remained a person with obvious
+limits. The General held aloof: she had no reason to fear that he
+suspected her secret. And so _Natura inventrix_, casting about for a
+cure, found and brought her this companion of her own sex from
+between the covers of a book.
+
+I set down the fact merely and its share in Dorothea's recovery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GENERAL ROCHAMBEAU TELLS A STORY;
+AND THE TING-TANG RINGS FOR THE LAST TIME
+
+
+More than a year had passed when, one February morning, as he left the
+breakfast table, Endymion handed Dorothea a slip of paper.
+
+"Do you think we can entertain at dinner next Wednesday? If you can
+manage it, I wish these invitations written out and despatched before
+noon."
+
+"Next Wednesday?" Dorothea's eyebrows went up. Invitations to dine at
+Bayfield had always, as we know, been issued just three weeks ahead.
+
+"If it will not inconvenience you," he answered; and his manner added,
+as plainly as words, "I beg that you will not press for my reasons."
+He was booted already for his ride into Axcester.
+
+Dorothea ran her eye down the list: The Vicomte de Tocqueville, General
+Rochambeau. . . . All the prisoners of distinction were included as
+well as the chief notables of the neighbourhood, which made it a long
+one, even without a full balance of ladies.
+
+She went off to her room at once and penned the letters--twenty-five
+in all.
+
+Naturally, this break in the Bayfield custom set speculation going
+among the invited; but it is doubtful if Narcissus, any more than
+Dorothea, knew the reason of it. And on Wednesday, when the guests
+assembled, the only one who might be suspected of sharing Endymion's
+secret was (oddly enough) General Rochambeau. The old fellow seemed
+ten years younger, and wore an air of sportiveness, almost of raillery,
+as he caught his host's eye. The compliments he paid Lady Bateson
+across the table were prodigious, and gave that good soul a hazy
+sensation of being wafted back to the court of Louis XV, and behaving
+brilliantly under the circumstances.
+
+"Really, my dear Mr. Westcote," she protested at length, being a
+chartered utterer of indiscretions which (as she delighted to prove)
+Endymion would not tolerate in others, but took from her and allowed,
+with a magisterial smile, to pass,--"really, I trust you have not
+taken off the General's parole, or to-morrow I shall have to lock my
+gates for fear of a chaise-and-pair."
+
+"Ah, to-morrow!" the General echoed, turning to Endymion, with a twinkle
+of malice in his eye. "But when Mr. Westcote releases us, it will be en
+masse; and then, believe me, I shall come with an army, since I
+underrate neither the strength of the fortress nor the feeling of the
+country."
+
+"That reminds me," put in a Mr. Saxby, of Yeovil, or near by, "we have
+heard of no escape or attempts at escape from Axcester this winter. I
+congratulate you, Westcote--if the General will not think it
+offensive."
+
+"Reassure yourself, my dear sir." General Rochambeau bowed. "No," he
+continued, lifting his eyes for a moment towards Dorothea, "in one way
+or another we are rid of our fence-breakers, and the rest must share
+the credit with our Commissary."
+
+"And yet the temptation--," began Lady Bateson.
+
+"Is great, Madame, for some temperaments. But the Vicomte, here, and I
+have tried to teach our poor compatriots that in resisting it they
+fight for France as surely as if they stormed a breach. And, by the
+way, I heard a story this morning--if the company would care to hear--"
+
+They begged him to tell it.
+
+"But not if the ladies leave us to our wine." He turned to Dorothea.
+"If Miss Westcote will rally and stay her forces, good; for, though it
+came to me casually in a letter, it is a tale of the sort which used
+to be fashionable in my youth--ah! long before M. le Tocqueville
+remembers--and for the telling it demanded an audience of ladies,
+which must help me, who am rusty, to recapture the style, if I can."
+
+He pushed back his chair and, crossing his legs, leaned forward and
+pushed his fingers across the polished mahogany till they touched the
+base of a wine-glass beside his plate. One or two of the guests smiled
+at this formal opening. The Vicomte's eyes showed something of
+amusement behind their apathy. But all listened.
+
+"My tale, Miss Dorothea, is of a certain M. Benest, who until a few
+weeks ago was a prisoner on parole in one of your towns on the south
+coast. He had been _chef de hune_ (which, as you know, is chief petty
+officer) of the _Embuscade_ frigate, captured by Sir John Warren. In
+the action which lost her M. Benest lost a leg, and was placed in an
+English hospital, where they gave him a wooden one.
+
+"Now how it came about that on his discharge he was allowed to live in
+a town--call it a village, rather--a haven, at any rate--where for
+a couple of napoleons he might have found a boat any night of the week
+to smuggle him over to Roscoff, is more than I can tell you. It may be
+that he had once borne another name than Benest, one to command
+privileges: since many of my countrymen, as you know, have found it
+prudent in recent years to change their names and take up with
+callings below their real rank. There, at any rate, he was; and on the
+day after his arrival, he and the Rector of the parish--who was also
+a magistrate--took a walk and marked out the bounds together: two
+miles along the coast to the east, two miles along the coast to the
+west, and two miles up the valley behind the town. At the end of these
+two miles the valley itself branched into two and climbed inland, the
+road branching likewise; and M. Benest's mark was the signpost at the
+angle.
+
+"Well, at first he walked little, because of his wooden leg. He had
+lodgings with a widow in a white-washed cottage overlooking the
+harbour-side, and seemed happy enough there, tending a monster
+geranium which grew against the house-wall, or pottering about the
+quay and making friends with the children. For the children soon picked
+up an affection for him, seeing that he was never too busy to drop his
+gardening and come and be umpire at their games of 'tig' or 'prisoners'
+bars.' Also he had stories for them, and halfpennies or sweetmeats in
+mysterious pockets, and songs which he taught them: _Girofle, girofla_,
+and _Compagnons de la Marjolaine_, and _Les Petits Bateaux_--do you
+know it?--
+
+   "'Papa, les p'tits bateaux
+   Qui vont sur I'eau,
+   Ont-ils des jambes?
+   --Mais oui, petit beta,
+   S'ils n'en avaient pas, ils n' march'raient pas!'
+
+"In short, M. Benest, with his loose blue coat and three-cornered
+naval cap, endeared himself to the children, and through the children
+to everyone.
+
+"It was some time before he began to take walks; and I believe he had
+been living in the town for six months, when one day, having stumped
+up the valley road for a change, and just as he was facing about for
+the return journey, he heard a voice in his own language singing to
+the air of _Vive Henri Quatre_.
+
+"The voice was shaky and, I dare say, uncertain in its upper notes;
+but it fetched M. Benest right-about-face again. He perceived that it
+came from the garden of a solitary cottage up the road, a gunshot and
+more beyond his signpost. But a tall hedge interrupted his view, and,
+though he stared long and earnestly, all he could see that day was a
+pea-stick nodding above it.
+
+"He came again, however,--not the next day, but the day after,--and
+was rewarded by a glimpse of a white cap with bows which seemed at
+that distance of a purplish colour. Its wearer was standing in the
+gateway and exchanging a word with the Rector, who had reined up his
+horse in the road.
+
+"M. Benest walked home and made inquiries; but his landlady could only
+tell him that the cottage was rented by two ladies, sisters,--she had
+heard that they came from the West Indies,--who saw nobody, but
+wished only to be let alone. One of them, who suffered from an
+incurable complaint, was never seen; the other could be seen on fine
+days in her garden, where she worked vigorously; and what the pair
+lived on was a mystery, for they bought nothing in the town or of
+their neighbours.
+
+"On learning this, M. Benest became very cunning indeed. He bought a
+fishing rod.
+
+"For I ought to have told you that a stream ran down the valley beside
+the road, and it contained trout--perhaps as many as a dozen.
+M. Benest had no desire to catch them; but, you see, he was forced to
+acquire some show of expertness in order to deceive the wayfarers who
+paused and watched him; and in time (I am told) the fish, after being
+unhooked once or twice and restored apologetically to the water, came
+to enjoy disconcerting him. You must understand that he had no foolish
+illusions concerning the white cap and purplish ribbons--the
+Mademoiselle Henriette, as he discovered she was called. He only knew
+that here were two women, his compatriots, poor certainly, often hungry
+perhaps, shipwrecked so close to him upon this corner of (pardon me,
+Miss Dorothea) an unfriendly land, yet divided from any comfort he
+could bring by fifty yards of road and his word of honour. She must be
+of the true blood of France who quavered out _Vive Henri Quatre_ so
+resolutely over her digging and hoeing: but the sound of a French voice
+might hearten her as hers had heartened him. Therefore he sang lustily
+while he angled--which is not good for sport; and when he caught a
+fish, broke into paeans addressed less to the captive--with which,
+between you and me, he was secretly annoyed--than to an ear unseen,
+perhaps a quarter of a mile away.
+
+"But there came a day--how shall I tell it?--when calamity fell upon
+the cottage. For some time the farmers up the valley had been missing
+sheep. What so easy now as to suspect the two women who were never
+known to buy either bread or butcher's meat? You can guess! A rabble
+marched up from the town and broke in upon them. It found nothing, of
+course; and I am told that at sight of the face of the poor elder
+sister it fled back in panic, leaving the place a wreck.
+
+"It so happened that M. Benest had pretermitted his angling, that
+afternoon, for a stroll along the cliff: but he heard the news on his
+return, from his landlady, while he sat at tea--that is to say, he
+heard a part of it, for before the story was out he had set down his
+teacup, caught up hat and stick, and stumped out of the house. The most
+of the townspeople were indoors at tea, discussing the sensation; the
+few he encountered had no greeting from him. He looked neither to the
+right nor to the left; had no ears for his friends, the trout, as they
+rose at the evening flies. He reached the signpost and--walked past
+it! He stumped straight up to the garden gate, which stood ajar, and
+pushed it wide with his stick.
+
+"There were signs of trampling on the flower-beds; but--for it was
+July--the whole garden blazed with hollyhocks, oeillets, sweet
+Williams, sweet peas, above all with that yellow flower--mimulus,
+monkey flower, is it not?--which grows so profusely in gardens beside
+streams. The air was weighted with scent of the reseda and of the
+jasmine which climbed the wall and almost choked the roses.
+
+"The cottage door stood ajar also. He thrust this open too, and for
+the first time stood face to face with Mademoiselle Henriette.
+
+"She sat by the kitchen table, with one arm flung across it, and her
+body bowed with grief. At her feet lay a trodden bunch of the monkey
+flowers: and at the tap-tap of his wooden leg on the threshold she
+sprang up and faced him, across the yellow blossoms.
+
+"'Mademoiselle,' he began, 'I have just learnt--but it is an infamy!
+_Permettez_--I am French, I also, though you do not know me perhaps.'
+
+"And with that M. Benest stammered and came to a halt, for her eyes
+were worse than woeful. They were accusing--yes, accusing _him_. Of
+what? _Nom de tonnerre_, what had he done?
+
+"'You, Monsieur! _You_--an officer of France!'
+
+"_'Mais quel rapport y a-t-il?'_
+
+"'Your _parole_, Monsieur!'
+
+"_'Peste!_ I forgot,' said M. Benest, half to himself.
+
+"'Forgot? Forgot your _parole? Mais ecoutez donc! Nous savons souffrir,
+nous autres franfaises . . . Et la petite qui meurt--et--et moi qui
+mourrai Presqu' a l'heure--mais nous nous en tenons a' ne pas
+dishonorer la Patrie a la fin. Ca finira bien, sous-officier--allez-
+vous--allez-vous en. Mais allez!'_
+
+"She stamped her foot upon the flowers, and M. Benest turned and fled
+from her. Nay, in his haste, taking a short-cut towards the signpost,
+he plunged his wooden leg deep in the marsh, and tumbled helpless,
+overwhelmed with shame.
+
+"He never passed the signpost again, nor caught another glimpse of
+Mademoiselle Henriette's cap. Three days later the Rector broke into
+the cottage and discovered her seated, dead and stiff, her hands
+stained with digging her sister's grave.
+
+"And the cottage had no new tenant. Only M. Benest continued to eye it
+wistfully, as he cast his flies and pondered on his offence, which she
+had died without forgiving.
+
+"But one July, two years after her death, a patch of gold appeared on
+the marsh below the hedge--a patch of the monkey-flower. Some seeds
+had been blown thither, or carried down by the stream.
+
+"Next July the patch had doubled its length.
+
+"'The flowers are travelling towards me,' said M. Benest.
+
+"And year by year the stream brought them nearer. That was a terrible
+July for him when they came within two feet of the signpost; but he
+would not stretch a hand beyond it.
+
+"'She coquets with her forgiveness, the poor Mademoiselle Henriette.
+But I can wait: _'faut pas deshonorer la patrie a la fin!'_
+
+"Before the next July he had made sure of one plant at least on his
+side of the signpost; and fished beside it day after day, fearful lest
+some animal should browse upon it. But when the happy morning came for
+it to open, and M. Benest knelt beside his prize, he drew back a hand.
+
+"'Is it quite open?' he asked. 'Better wait, since all is safe, for the
+sun to warm it a little longer.'
+
+"And he waited, until a trout, to remind him, perhaps, took a fly with
+a splash beneath his nose. Then, with a start, M. Benest's fingers
+closed and snapped off the yellow blossom.
+
+"'She has forgiven me,' said he. Now I can forgive myself.'"
+
+For a moment or two, though his story was ended, the General continued
+to toy with the stem of his wine glass. One or two of the guests cried
+"Bravo!" But Lady Bateson's eyes were wet, and Dorothea gazed hard for
+a while into the polished surface of the mahogany before she recalled
+herself, and, with a nod, swept the ladies away to the drawing-room.
+
+Later, in a pause between two songs, the General dropped into a seat
+beside her.
+
+"Can you guess who sent me that story?" he asked. "It was M. Raoul;
+and he travelled across from Plymouth in the ship with this M. Benest,
+who happened to get his exchange at about the same time. It was clever
+of him to worm out the story--if, indeed, he did not invent it. But
+that young man has genius for pathos."
+
+"I did not know that you corresponded."
+
+"Indeed, nor did I. He chose to write. I may answer; and, again, I may
+not. To tell you the truth, I have never been sure if we condemned him
+quite justly."
+
+Dorothea found herself able to look straight into the kindly old eyes.
+
+"It was a beautiful story. Did you tell it for me?"
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle, in thanks and in contrition. We are all prisoners
+in this world; but while it is certain you have made fortitude easier
+for us, I have suspected that there was a time when I, for one, might
+have been bolder and repaid you, but stood aside. Also, I think you no
+longer require help."
+
+"No longer, General. But what you say is true: we are all prisoners
+here, or sentries at the best." And Dorothea, resting her fan on her
+lap, let these lines fall from her, not consciously quoting, but
+musing on each word as it fell:
+
+   "Brutus and Cato might discharge their souls,
+   And give them furloughs for another world;
+   But we, like sentries, are obliged to stand
+   In starless nights, and wait the appointed hour."
+
+The General stared.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, what poet taught you that?"
+
+"It was a kinswoman," she answered, and caught herself blushing. "I do
+not know the author."
+
+*      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The secret of the Commissary's dinner-party came out early next morning,
+when the call came for the prisoners to leave Axcester. And, whenever
+Dorothea looked back on this epoch in her life, what she found most
+wonderful was the suddenness of its end. As day broke in a drizzle, and
+before she was well awake, a troop of dragoons, followed by a company
+of the 52nd Regiment of foot, passed the Bayfield gates on the way to
+Axcester. The troopers entered the town while the Ting-tang was
+sounding, and before the roll could be called the prisoners were
+surrounded. Their release had come; and though many had sighed for it
+for years, it found them quite unprepared.
+
+Their release had come; but first they must be marched through the
+length of the country to Kelso, there to await the formalities of
+exchange. At four in the afternoon the infantry marched out with the
+first great batch. Early next morning the rest--owners of furniture,
+granted a few hours to arrange for its storage or sale--followed their
+comrades. There was no cloud of dust upon the road for Dorothea to
+watch. They departed in sheets of rain and under the dusk of dawn. She
+never again saw General Rochambeau.
+
+It is recorded that in his fifty-seventh year Endymion Westcote married
+(but the bride was not Lady Bateson), and that children were born to
+him. Narcissus lived on at Bayfield and compiled at his leisure a
+_History of Axcester_, which mentions the decoration of the Orange Room
+by "a young Frenchman of talent, who has been good enough to assist
+the author in a most important work." But Dorothea preferred her
+independence and a cottage not far from the bridge, where Endymion's
+children might romp as they listed, but never seemed to disturb its
+exquisite order.
+
+
+
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