With Raoul's fate he
declined to meddle. "Here," he said in effect, "is my report, including
the prisoner's confession. I do my simple duty in presenting it. But
the young man was captured in my grounds; he was known to be a _protege_
of my brother's. Finding him wounded and faint with loss of blood, we
naturally did our best for him, and this again renders me perhaps too
sympathetic. The law is the law, however, and must take its course."
No attitude could have been more proper or have shown better feeling.
So Raoul, who made a rapid recovery--barring the limp which he carried
to the end of his days--was tried, condemned, and sentenced in the
space of two hours. He stuck to his story, and the court had no
alternative. Dartmoor or Stapleton inevitably awaited the prisoner who
broke parole and was retaken. The night after his sentence Raoul was
marched past the Bayfield gates under escort for Dartmoor. And Dorothea
had not intervened.
This, of course, proves that she was of no heroical fibre. She knew it.
Night after night she had lain awake, vainly contriving plans for his
deliverance; and either she lacked inventiveness or was too honest, for
no method could she discover which avoided confession of the simple
truth. As the days passed without catastrophe and without news save
that her lover was bettering in hospital, she staved off the truth,
trusting that the next night would bring inspiration.
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