In the long watches of that night it never occurred to her that the brutality of her brother’s contempt was over-done.  And Endymion, not given to self-questioning at any time, was probably unconscious of a dull wrath revenging itself for many pin-pricks of Master Raoul’s clever tongue.  Endymion Westcote, like many pompous men, usually hurt somebody when he indulged in a joke, and for this cause, perhaps, had a nervous dislike of wit in others.  Dull in taking a jest, but almost preternaturally clever in suspecting one, he had disliked Raoul’s sallies in proportion as they puzzled him.  The remembrance of them rankled, and this had been his bull-roar of revenge.

He spent the next morning in his office; and returning at three in the afternoon, retired to the library to draw up the usual monthly report required of him as Commissary.  He had been writing tor an hour or more, when Dorothea tapped at the door and entered.

Endymion did not observe her pallor; indeed, he scarcely looked up.

“Ah!  You have come for a book?  Make as little noise, then, as possible, that’s a good soul.  You interrupted me in a column of figures.”

He began to add them up afresh, tapping the table with the fingers of his left hand, as his custom was when counting.  Dorothea waited.  The addition made, he entered it, resting three shapely finger-tips on the table’s edge for the number to be carried over.

“I wish to speak with you particularly.”

He laid down his pen resignedly.  Her voice was urgent, and he knew well enough that the occasion must be urgent when Dorothea interrupted his work.

“Anything wrong?”

“It—­it’s about M. Raoul.”

His eyebrows went up, but only to contract again upon a magisterial frown.

“Really, after the request I was obliged to make to Narcissus last night—­you were present, I believe?  Is it possible that I failed to make plain my distaste?”

“Ah, but listen!  It is no question of distaste, but of a great wrong.  He was not trying to escape; he told you an untruth, to—­to save—­”

Endymion had picked up a paper-knife, and leaned back, tapping his teeth with it.

“Do you know?” he said, “I suspected something of this kind from the first, though I had no idea you shared the knowledge.  Zeally’s cleverness struck me as a trifle too—­ah—­phenomenal for belief.  I scented some low intrigue; and Polly’s dismissal may indicate my pretty shrewd guess at the culprit.”

“But it was not Polly!”

“Eh?”

Endymion sat bolt upright.

“You must not blame Polly.  It was I whom M. Raoul came to see that night.”

He stared at her, incredulous.

“My dear Dorothea, are you quite insane?”

“He wished to see me—­to speak with me; he gave the girl a note for me.  I knew nothing about it until I went upstairs that night, and found her at the boudoir window.  M. Raoul was outside.  He had arrived before she could deliver the message.”