“Hist!  Your friend is below there, if you care to have a peep at him.”

But Dorothea had already drawn back.  All this spying and listening revolted her.  The polite Commandant noted the movement.

“You prefer that he should be fetched at once?” He stepped past them into the corridor.  “Smithers!” he called.  “Smithers!”

A hospital orderly appeared at a door almost opposite the passage, and saluted.

“Run down to the Convalescent Ward and fetch up Number Two-six-seven-two.—­I know the number of each of my children.  I never make a mistake,” he confided in Dorothea’s ear.  “As quick as you can, please!  Stay; you may add that some visitors have called and wish to speak with him.”

The orderly saluted again, and hurried off.

“You wish, of course, to see him alone together?”

“I think,” answered Endymion, slowly, “my sister would prefer a word or two with him alone.”

“Certainly.  Will you step into the surgery, Miss Westcote?” He indicated the door at which the orderly had appeared.  “Smithers will not take two minutes in fetching the prisoner; and perhaps, if you will excuse us, a visit to the hospital itself will repay your brother.  We are rather proud of our sanitation here:  a glance over our arrangements—­five minutes only—­”

Endymion, at a nod from Dorothea, permitted himself to be led away by the inexorable man.

She watched them to the end of the corridor, and had her hand on the surgery door to push it open, when a voice from below smote her ears.

“Number Two-six-seven-two to come to the surgery at once, to see visitors!”

The voice rang up through the little passage behind her.  She turned; the door at the end of it stood half-open; beyond it she saw the bars of the gallery, and through these a space of whitewashed wall at the end of the ward.

She was turning again, when a babble of voices answered the orderly’s announcement.  “Raoul!  Raoul!” half-a-dozen were calling, and then one spoke up sharp and distinct: 

“Tenez, mon bonhomme, ce sera votre gilet, a coup sur!”

A burst of laughter followed.

“C’est son gilet—­his little Waistcoat—­a chauffer la poitrine—­”

“Des visiteurs, dit il?  Voyons, coquin, n’y-a-t-il pas par hasard une visiteuse de la partie.”

“Une ‘Waistcoat’ par example?—­de quarante ans environ, le drap un peu rape . . .”

“Qui se nomme Dorothee—­ce que veut dire le gilet dieudonne . . .”

“Easy now!” the Orderly’s voice remonstrated.  “Easy, I tell you, ye born mill-clappers!  There’s a lady in the party, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Dorothea put out a hand against the jamb of the surgery door, to steady herself She heard the smack of a palm below and some one uttered a serio-comic groan.

“Enfonce!  Il m’a parie dix sous qu’elle viendrait avant le jour de Pan, et aussi du tabac avec tout le Numero Six.  Nous en ferons la dot de Mademoiselle!” The fellow burst out singing—­