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.

To-day the first of the winter's snow fell gently, persistently, out of a leaden and windless sky.
She turned.