or."

Dorothea's candlestick shook in her hand, and the extinguisher fell on
the floor. Her brother picked it up and restored it.

"Naturally," he murmured with brotherly concern, "your nerves! It has
been a trying night, but you comported yourself admirably, Dorothea.
Ibbetson assures me he could not have tied the bandage better himself.
I felt proud of my sister." He kissed her gallantly and pulled out his
watch. "Past twelve o'clock!--time they were round with the barouche.
The sooner we get Master Raoul down to the Infirmary and pack him in
bed, the better."

As Dorothea went up the stairs she heard the sound of wheels on the
gravel.

She could not accept his sacrifice. No; a way must be found to save
him, and in her prayers that night she began to seek it. But while
she prayed, her heart was bowed over a great joy. She had a hero for
a lover!

CHAPTER IX

DOROTHEA CONFESSES

She saw no more of him, and heard very little, before the Court Martial
met. No one acquainted with the code of that age--so strait-laced in
its proprieties, so full-blooded in its vices--will need to be told
that she never dreamed of asking her brother's permission to visit the
Prisoners' Infirmary. He reported--once a day, perhaps, and casually--
that the patient was doing well. Dorothea ventured once to sound
General Rochambeau, but the old aristocrat answered stiffly that he
took no interest in _declasses_, and plainly hinted that, in his
judgment, M. Raoul had sinned past pardon; which but added to her
remorse. From time to time she obtained some hearsay news through
Polly; but Polly's chief interest now lay in her approaching marriage.

For the Commissary, while accepting Raoul's version of his capture, had
an intuitive gift which saved him from wholly believing in it. Indeed,
his conduct of the affair, if we consider the extent of his knowledge,
was nothing less than masterly. Corporal Zeally found himself a
sergeant within forty-eight hours, and within an hour of the
announcement he and Polly were given an audience in the Bayfield
library, with the result that Parson Milliton cried their banns in
Axcester Church on the following Sunday, and the bride-elect received
a month's wages and three weeks' notice of dismissal, with a hint that
the reason for her short retention--to instruct her successor in Miss
Dorothea's ways--was ostensible rather than real. With Raoul's fate he
declined to meddle. "Here," he said in effect