hmen might
be thin-skinned; but war was war, and surely Britons had a right to
raise three cheers for a victory. Besides he had begged pardon at once,
and offered to shake hands like a gentleman--that is, as soon as he
discovered whose feelings were hurt; for naturally the fisticuffs had
come first, and in these Master Raoul had taken as good as he brought.
As the Vicomte cleared a path for her to the porch, where Endymion
stood shaking hands and bidding adieu, Dorothea caught her first and
last glimpse of this traveller, who--without knowing it, without
seeing her face to remember it, or even learning her name--was to
deflect the slow current of her life, and send it whirling down a
strange channel, giddy, precipitous, to an end unguessed.

She saw a fresh-complexioned lad, somewhat flushed and red in the face,
but of frank and pleasant features; dressed in a three-cornered cocked-
hat, blue coat piped with white and gilt-buttoned, white breeches and
waistcoat, and broad black sword-belt; a youngster of the sort that
loves a scrimmage or a jest, but is better in a scrimmage than in a
jest when the laugh goes against him. He was eying the chaise just now,
and obviously cursing the hour in which he had decorated it with laurel.

Yet on the whole in a trying situation he bore himself well.

"Ah, much obliged to you, Vicomte!" Endymion hailed the pair. "There
has been a small misunderstanding, my dear Dorothea; not the slightest
cause for alarm! Still, you had better pass through to the coffee-room
and wait for me."

Dorothea dismissed M. de Tocqueville with a bow, passed into the dark
passage and pushed open the coffee-room door.

Within sat a young man, his elbows on the table, and his face bowed
upon his arms. His fingers convulsively twisted a torn scrap of
bunting; his shoulders heaved. It was M. Raoul.

Dorothea paused in the doorway and spoke his name. He did not look up.

She stepped towards him.

"M. Raoul!"

A sob shook him. She laid a hand gently on his bowed head, on the dark
wave of hair above his strong, shapely neck. She was full of pity,
longing to comfort . . .

"M. Raoul!"

He started, gazed up at her, and seized her hand. His eyes swam with
tears, but behind the tears blazed a light which frightened her. Yet--
oh, surely!--she could not mistake it.

"Dorothea!"

He held both her hands now. He was drawing her towards him. She could
not speak. The room swam; outside the window she heard th