Now that Dorothea’s infatuation had escaped all risk of public laughter, Endymion could find leisure to admire her courage in confessing, in persisting until the wrong was righted, and, now at the last, in shutting the door upon the whole episode.

And, now at the last, having shut the door upon it, Dorothea could reflect that her brother, too, had suffered.  She knew his pride, his sensitiveness, his mortal dread of ridicule.  In the smart of his wound he had turned and rent her cruelly, but had recovered himself and defended her loyally from worse rendings.  She remembered, too, that he had distrusted Raoul from the first.

He had been right.  But had she been wholly wrong?

In the dusk of the fifth evening after their departure the chaise rolled briskly in through Bayfield great gates and up the snowy drive.  Almost noiselessly though it came, Mudge had the door thrown wide and stood ready to welcome them, with Narcissus behind in the comfortable glow of the hall.

Dorothea’s limbs were stiff, and on alighting she steadied herself for a moment by the chaise-door before stepping in to kiss her brother.  In that moment her eyes took one backward glance across the park and rested on the lights of Axcester glimmering between the naked elms.

“Well,” demanded Narcissus, after exchange of greetings, “and what did he say about the drawings?”

Dorothea had not expected the question in this form, and parried it with a laugh: 

“You and your drawings!  I declare”—­she turned to Endymion—­“he has been thinking of them all the time, and affects no concern in our adventures!”

“Which, nevertheless, have been romantic to the last degree,” he added, playing up to her.

“My dear Dorothea—­” Narcissus expostulated.

“But you are not going to evade me by any such tricks,” she interrupted, sternly; “for that is what it comes to.  I left you with the strictest orders to take care of yourself, and you ought to know that I shall answer nothing until you have been catechised.  What have you been eating?”

“My dear Dorothea!”

Narcissus gazed helplessly at Mudge; but Mudge had been seized with a flurry of his own, and misinterpreted the look as well as the stern question.

“I—­I reckon ’tis me, Miss,” he confessed.  “Being partial to onions, and taking that liberty in Mr. Endymion’s absence, knowing his dislike of the effluvium—­”

Such are the pitfalls of a guilty conscience on the one hand, and, on the other, of being unexpectedly clever.

An hour later, at dinner, Narcissus was informed that the drawings had been conveyed to M. Raoul, who, doubtless, would return them with hints for correction.

“But had he nothing to say at the time?”

“For my part,” said Endymion, sipping his wine, “I addressed but one sentence to him; and Dorothea, I daresay, exchanged but half a dozen.  Considering the shortness of the interview, and that our mission—­at least, our ostensible mission”—­Endymion glanced at Dorothea, with a smile at his own finesse—­“was to carry him news of his release, you will admit—­”