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.

THE END