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,