And then she told her tale--told it looking with dry eyes over the desolate wilderness which had once been so fair a home--told it all, simply and without colouring, as a Frenchman might--supposing a Frenchman capable of telling an unvarnished narrative--relate how the Uhlans entered his modest habitation, and, not without insult, stripped it bare. "But do not you think your husband would like to come back here?" he inquired after a long pause. "Back here?" she repeated, "I think I understand now your intention; but do not try to carry it out; Archie would never be happy here without me." "Is your objection to Homewood, then, so rooted?" he inquired, with a disappointed smile. For answer she only turned away her head, and he repeated his question. Then she said, "I should not like my poor husband to arrange his future with any reference to me." She had been so bright, so cheerful, so eager about Mortomley's prosperity, so reticent concerning her own ailments, that Mr. Douglas had learned to think he must have erred in imagining that when first he looked in her face he looked in the face of a woman for whom the fiat had gone forth, but now, by her forced silence, by the unshed tears in her voice when she finally answered, he understood. He knew that she had faced her danger, and that to the last she was keeping a bold front to the enemy, for the sake of another; aye! ever and always, Dolly was faithful to that trust. Without another word of explanation they left Homewood. Tenderly, as she passed one special spot, Dolly gathered a sprig of myrtle, and kissing it, would have placed it in her purse, but, thinking twice about the matter, she held it in her hand till they were near the front gate, when she cast it from her. Strong to the last, brave as tender, was it any marvel this man who had never called any woman wife, never held a child of his own to his heart, felt that had Mrs. Mortomley been his wife or his daughter, he could sooner have parted with life than with her. "There is only one thing you can do for me," she observed as she lay back in the railway carriage on their way home. "Get my husband's discharge and that will be worth more than gold and silver to me." "I will do my best, my dear," he answered; "but I fear the difficulties are almost insurmountable." In truth he had been interesting himself greatly about this very matter, and he did not see, unless a useless expense were incurred, how the desire of Dolly's heart was to be compassed. That fatal clause rendering the concurrence of the whole of the committee necessary had been paraded ostentatiously before his face by Mr. Swanland. True, Mr. Kleinwort was not in England or likely to return to it, and Mr. Forde had nothing now to do with the General Chemical Company, Limited, which had indeed itself ceased to exist, having been purchased by Hewitt and Date for a sum which paid the original shareholders about a sovereign in the twenty-five pound share.