"I sort of saw the redeemed of the Lord. They were men, as well as women, Frank. And they were all free. They were all free because they were redeemed. And the funny thing was that you were part of it. You were mixed up in the whole queer, tremendous business. Everything was ended. And everything was begun; so that I knew you understood even when you didn't understand. It was really as if I'd got you tight, somehow; and I knew you couldn't go, even when you'd gone."
"And yet you don't see that it's a crime to force me to go."
"I see that it would be a worse crime to force you to stay if you mean going.
"What time is it?"
"A quarter to eight."
"And I've got to go home and have a bath. Whatever you do, don't make me late for that infernal banquet. You are going to drive me there?"
"I'm going to drive you there, but I'm not going in with you."
"Poor darling! Did I ask you to go in?"
He drove her back to her father's house. She came out of it burnished and beautiful, dressed in clean white linen, with the broad red, white and blue tricolour of the Women's Franchise Union slanting across her breast.
He drove her to the Banquet of the Prisoners, to the Imperial Hotel, Kingsway. They went in silence; for their hearts ached too much for speaking. But in Dorothy's heart, above the aching, there was that queer exaltation that had sustained her in prison.