She gave a little
cry of dismay:
"The drawings!"
"Eh?"
"We forgot to deliver them."
"Oh, confound the things!"
Endymion was for pitching them back into the chaise.
"But no!" she entreated. "Why, Narcissus believes it was to deliver
them that we came!"
So the Commandant amiably charged himself to hand the parcel to
M. Raoul, and waved his adieux with it as the chaise rolled away.
Of what had passed between Dorothea and Raoul at the surgery door
Endymion knew nothing; but he had guessed at once, and now was assured
by the tone in which she had spoken of the drawings, that the chapter
was closed, the danger past. Coming, brother and sister had scarcely
exchanged a word for miles together. Now they found themselves chatting
without effort about the landscape, the horses' pace, the Commandant
and his hospitality, the arrangements of the prison, and the prospects
of a cosy dinner at Moreton Hampstead. It was all the smallest of small
talk, and just what might be expected of two reputable middle-aged
persons returning in a post-chaise from a mild jaunt; yet beneath it
ran a current of feeling. In their different ways, each had been moved;
each had relied upon the other for a degree of help which could not be
asked in words, and had not been disappointed.
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.
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