The Westcotes

-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 do

rom time to time she obtained some hearsay news through Polly;

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

f two hours. He stuck to his story, and the court had no alternative. Dartmoor or Stapleton inevitably awaited the prisoner who broke parole an

h 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

alled upon Polly, now a bride of six days' standing and domiciled in one of the Westcote cottages in Chur

rl-papers; she obviously did not expect visitors, and resented this curtailment of the

am very

ed, M

ul is going to that horrible war-priso

didn't encour

courage him to come,"

fault, and he broke his

that a prisoner promises to make no attempt to escape. M. Raoul ne

to say he was escaping, I don't s

t's what we ought to do, though it

it was," Pol

u 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 se

er ex-mistre

rnt the note

to the roots of h

s evidence for him,

as Polly nod

d now you'll never make up your m

ote itself would n

e tells too many tales, and anyone but a fool would ask for that note before he'd been dealing with you three minutes.

e reflected a moment. "I should d

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 eas

You don't mean to say t

peat that Zeally was three-parts of a fool; but, being nettled

ed to feel the prick of this shaft. "You will

oint-blank way. A married woman's got t

y surprise and pain their mistresses until the end of the world. After all, Polly was right. An attempt to clear Raoul by telling

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 ha

en 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 s

inguishes the brave from the cowardly. If you doubt the event with Dorothea, the fault, must be mine. She w

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 o

ent together; to criticise here and offer a suggestion there; while every line revived a memory, inflicted a pang. What suggestion coul

you, and on the strength of this I gave it too little attention. Of course, if one could have foreseen-" He broke

?" Dorothea asked su

ide of the hall, before the fire, Endymion dozed after a long

repeated, her voice scarc

e had only guessed what he intended, we might have signed a petition telling him how nec

ever meant-" She put out a hand to lay it on her broth

sus called across

" Endymion came

these drawings, a comp

out of Dartmoor to se

ou take to work it fo

been o

the table with a sigh

r for a look around the hall,-"pray moderate your tones. I particularly deprecate levity on such

op of his head-a trick

in due form, through the Commandant of the Prison? The poor fellow owes us no grudge. I believe he

unhappy youth is repugnant to me. By good fortune, we escaped being compromised by him; and I

suggest, I hope, that I e

erness 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 mai

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

ging 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 othe

red to the library to draw up the usual monthly report required of him as Commissary.

ve her pallor; indeed,

noise, then, as possible, that's a good soul

as his custom was when counting. Dorothea waited. The addition made, he entered it, r

eak with you

gent, and he knew well enough that the occasion m

hing

about M

t only to contract again

Narcissus last night-you were present, I believe? Is

no question of distaste

escape; he told you a

per-knife, and leaned back,

u shared the knowledge. Zeally's cleverness struck me as a trifle too-ah-phenomenal for belief. I s

was no

E

sat bol

y. It was I whom M. Raou

at her, in

thea, are you

thing about it until I went upstairs that night, and found her at the boudoir wi

"And you really need me to point out how

o; it was

le impatiently wi

on if, finding no apparent limits to your innocence, I assume it to be illimitable, and point out that he would scarcely break bounds an

o Dorothea's cheeks, an

had come to feel a regard for M. Raoul; and he-" She could not go

is sudden laughter smote her like a whip. It broke in a shout of high, incontrollable m

sped. "You!

lt it curl across and bite the very flesh, an

t upright again,

le. 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 ne

eech, 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 humor

Doro

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, for

do abho

I do ad

e, my Lov

lush 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 lo

self asking, and could scarcely b

spectably married. It will cause her quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again. Her h

d her brother with something like contempt. But

l the truth-to o

and women told him at once what had happened. He had driven her too far. He was even clever enough to foresee that winning

my view?" he asked, t

it, even if I had the power. He is in priso

ossibly retur

impatience. Then her tone fell back to its dul

bad business and resolves to go through with it. "Well, there is

car

e something, and will no doubt oblige me in a small affair like this withou