ldered. 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 Dartmo