“J’ai du bon tabac
   Dans ma tabatiere.”

“Dites donc, mon petit,”—­but the cheerful epithet he bestowed on Raoul is unquotable here—­“Elle ne fume pas, votre Anglaise?  Elle n’est pas Creole, c’est entendu.”

Dorothea had stepped into the surgery.  A small round table stood in the middle of the room; she caught at the edge of it and rested so for a moment, for the walls seemed to be swaying and she durst not lift her hands to shut out the roars of laughter.  They rang in her ears and shouted and stunned her.  Her whole body writhed.

The hubbub below sank to a confused murmur.  She heard footsteps in the corridor—­the firm tramp of the orderly followed by the shuffle of list slippers.

“Number Two-six-seven-two is outside, ma’am.  Am I to show him in?”

She bent her head and moved towards the fireplace.  She heard him shuffle in, and the door shut behind him.  Still she did not turn.

“Dorothea!”—­his voice shook with joy, with passion.  How well she knew that deep Provencal tremolo.  She could have laughed aloud in her bitterness.

“Dorothea!”

She faced him at length.  He stood there, stretching out both hands to her.  He was handsome as ever, but pale and sadly pinched.  Beyond all doubt he had suffered.  His grey-blue hospital suit hung about him in folds.

In her eyes he read at once that something was wrong—­but without comprehending.  “You sent for me,” he stammered; “you have come—­”

She found her voice and, to her surprise, it was quite firm.

“Yes, we have brought your release,” she said; and, watching his eyes, saw the joy leap up in them, saw it quenched the next instant as he composed his features to a fond solicitude for her.

“But you?” he murmured.  “What has happened?  Tell me—­no, do not draw away!  Your hand, at least.”

Contempt, for herself or for him, gave her a moment’s strength, but it broke down again.

“It is horrible!” was all she answered and looked about her with a shiver.

“Ah, the place frightens you!  Well,” he laughed, reassuringly, “it frightened me at first.  But for the thought of you, dearest, to comfort—­”

She stepped past him and opened the door.  For a moment a wild notion seized him that she was escaping, and he put out an imploring hand; but he saw that, with her hand on the jamb, she was listening, and he, too, listened.  The voices in the Convalescent Ward came up to them, scarcely muffled, through the low passage, and with them a cackling laugh.  Then he understood.

Their eyes met.  He bowed his head.

“Nevertheless, I have suffered.”

He said it humbly, after many seconds, and in a voice so low that it seemed a second or two before she heard.  For the first time she put out a hand and touched his sleeve.

“Yes, you have suffered, and for me.  Let me go on believing that.  You did a noble thing, and I shall try to remember you by it—­to remember that you were capable of it.  ‘It was for my sake,’ I shall say, and then I shall be proud.  Oh, yes, sometimes I shall be very proud!  But in love—­”