And Dorothea?

The scourge might cut into her heart; it could not reach the image of Raoul she shielded there.  She knew her lover too well, and that he was incapable of this baseness.  But the injurious charge, diverted from him, fell upon her own defences, and, breaking them, let in the cruel light at length on her passion, her folly.  This was how the world would see it. . . .  Yes!  Raoul was right—­there is no enemy comparable with Time.  Looks, fortune, birth, breed, unequal hearts and minds—­all these Love may confound and play with; but Time which divides the dead from the living, sets easily between youth and age a gulf which not only forbids love but derides: 

   Age, I do abhor thee;
   Youth, I do adore thee;
   O, my Love, my Love is young!

She could give counsel, sympathy, care; could delight in his delights, hope in his hopes, melt with his woes, and, having wept a little, find comfort for them.  She could thrill at his footsteps, blush at his salutation, sit happily beside him and talk or be silent, reading his moods.  He might fill her waking day, haunt her dreams, in the end pass into prison for her sake, having crowned love with martyrdom.  And the world would laugh as Endymion had laughed!  Her hands went up to shut out the roar of it.  A coarse amour with Polly—­that could be understood.  Polly was young.  Polly . . .

“What will you do?” she heard herself asking, and could scarcely believe the voice belonged to her.

“Do?  Why, if my theory be right—­and I hope I’ve convinced you—­I see no use in meddling.  The girl is respectably married.  It will cause her quite unnecessary trouble if we rip this affair open again.  Her husband will have just ground for complaint, and it might—­I need not point out—­be a little awkward, eh?”

For the first time in her life Dorothea regarded her brother with something like contempt.  But the flash gave way to a look of weary resolve.

“Then I must tell the truth—­to others,” she said.

It confounded him for a moment.  But although here was a new Dorothea, belying all experience, his instinct for handling men and women told him at once what had happened.  He had driven her too far.  He was even clever enough to foresee that winning her back to obedience would be a ticklish, almost desperate, business; and even sensitive enough to redden at his blunder.

“You do not agree with my view?” he asked, tapping the table slowly.

“I disbelieve it.  I have no right to believe it, even if I had the power.  He is in prison.  You must help me to set him free.  If not—­”

“He cannot, possibly return to Axcester.”

“Oh, what is that to me?” she cried with sudden impatience.  Then her tone fell back to its dull level.  “I have not been pleading for myself.”

“No, no:  I understand.”  His brow cleared, as a man’s who faces a bad business and resolves to go through with it.  “Well, there is only one way to spare you and everyone.  We must get him a cartel.”