He could do
this, but he could not appreciably hurry the correspondence by which
Pall Mall bargained a Frenchman in the forest of Dartmoor against an
Englishman in the fortress of Briancon in the Hautes Alpes. Foreseeing
delays, he had written privately to the Commandant at Dartmoor--a
Major Sotheby, with whom he had some slight acquaintance--advising him
of his efforts and requesting him to show the prisoner meanwhile all
possible indulgence. The letter contained a draft, for ten pounds, to
be spent upon small comforts at the Commandant's discretion; but
M. Raoul was not to be informed of the donor, or of his approaching
liberty.
In theory--such was the routine--Raoul remained one of the Axcester
contingent of prisoners, and all reports concerning him must pass
through the Commissary's hands. In the last week of October, when
brother and sister daily expected the cartel, arrived a report that
the prisoner was in hospital with a sharp attack of pleurisy. Major
Sotheby added a private note:-
_"I feared yesterday that the exchange would come too late for him;
but to-day the Medical Officer, who has just left me, speaks hopefully.
I have no doubt, however, that a winter in this climate would be fatal.
The fellow's lungs are breaking down, and even if they could stand the
fogs, the cold must finish him."_
Dorothea stood by a window in the library when Endymion read this out
to her; the very window through which she had been gazing that spring
morning when Raoul first kissed her.
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