, "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 h