Being a hero-worshipper, she had always despised him in a kindly superior way, for he was sleek and contented and commonplace, blessed with a good digestion; had looked on his grovelling contentment with pity, and is not pity contempt clothed in tenderness? To have been so interesting Manfred must have had a terrible digestion; while as for the Corsair, I know that in private he suffered from dyspepsia. Whilst taking it for granted that Terence was too easy-going ever to become truly heroic, his cousin had warmed to him on the night at the theatre, when his indignation induced him to take the oath. That all that fervour should have been craftily assumed for the purpose of deceit was too repulsive a subject for reflection, and she put it from her. Maybe if she had calmly brought her mind to bear on it, she might have perceived that she was hasty, and have remembered that it is not right to condemn criminals unheard. But she had caught a glimpse of two ugly facts, and withdrew her gaze from them at once without further inquiry. Somebody was a traitor. The delegates had been betrayed more than once under the cloak of friendship. My lady had told her distinctly (or in her haste she thought so) that Terence had done the evil deed, for the paltry wage of five hundred pounds. She had deemed that her cousin at least was honest, and before thrusting his image from her sight, had felt, with a soreness for which she could not account, that she would have been very, very glad if she could have pronounced him innocent. Doreen, though she diverted her attention from the painful subject, was wondrously interested--down in her inmost heart--in the guilt or innocence of Terence, and felt a feeble flutter there, whose cause, if she had understood it, would have disgusted her. As it was, the flutter in time died a natural death, and, disillusioned, she sank into the apathetic condition of one who drifts and is content to drift--a rudderless resignation which is beyond despondency--an utter hopelessness with which his behaviour, though she wist it not, may have had something to do. Not long after her arrival at Glas-aitch-é she received a letter from her father, in which was enclosed another, with whose seal the upright gentleman had refrained from tampering. It was brought to him by an aged crone, who extracted a solemn promise that he would not open it. 'If ye promise,' she said, 'I'll believe ye, Arthur Wolfe, for ye're a good man, or ye would not be given so good a child.'