Mary Pickford Edition

Dorothy Vernon of

Haddon Hall

BY

CHARLES MAJOR

AUTHOR OF
WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER,
YOLANDA, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED WITH
SCENES FROM THE PHOTOPLAY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Made in the United States of America

Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1908
Printed in U.S.A.

To My Wife

CONTENTS

A TOUCH OF BLACK MAGIC

I draw the wizard's circle upon the sands, and blue flames spring from its circumference. I describe an inner circle, and green flames come responsive to my words of magic. I touch the common centre of both with my wand, and red flames, like adders' tongues, leap from the earth. Over these flames I place my caldron filled with the blood of a new-killed doe, and as it boils I speak my incantations and make my mystic signs and passes, watching the blood-red mist as it rises to meet the spirits of Air. I chant my conjurations as I learned them from the Great Key of Solomon, and while I speak, the ruddy fumes take human forms. Out of the dark, fathomless Past—the Past of near four hundred years ago—comes a goodly company of simple, pompous folk all having a touch of childish savagery which shows itself in the fierceness of their love and of their hate.

The fairest castle-château in all England's great domain, the walls and halls of which were builded in the depths of time, takes on again its olden form quick with quivering life, and from the gates of Eagle Tower issues my quaint and radiant company. Some are clad in gold lace, silks, and taffetas; some wear leather, buckram and clanking steel. While the caldron boils, their cloud-forms grow ever more distinct and definite, till at length I can trace their every feature. I see the color of their eyes. I discern the shades of their hair. Some heads are streaked with gray; others are glossy with the sheen of youth. As a climax to my conjurations I speak the word of all words magical, "Dorothy," and lo! as though God had said, "Let there be light," a fair, radiant girl steps from the portals of Haddon Hall and illumines all my ancient company so that I may see even the workings of their hearts.

They, and the events of their lives, their joys and sorrows, their virtues and sins, their hatreds, jealousies, and loves—the seven numbers in the total sum of life—pass before me as in a panorama, moving when I bid them move, pausing when I bid them pause, speaking when I bid them speak, and alas! fading back into the dim gray limbo of the past long, long ere I would have them go.

But hark! my radiant shades are about to speak. The play is about to begin.

DOROTHY VERNON OF HADDON HALL

CHAPTER I

I RIDE DOWN TO HADDON

Since I play no mean part in the events of this chronicle, a few words concerning my own history previous to the opening of the story I am about to tell you will surely not be amiss, and they may help you to a better understanding of my narrative.

To begin with an unimportant fact—unimportant, that is, to you—my name is Malcolm François de Lorraine Vernon. My father was cousin-german to Sir George Vernon, at and near whose home, Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, occurred the events which will furnish my theme.

Of the ancient lineage of the house of Vernon I need not speak. You already know that the family is one of the oldest in England, and while it is not of the highest nobility, it is quite gentle and noble enough to please those who bear its honored name. My mother boasted nobler blood than that of the Vernons. She was of the princely French house of Guise—a niece and ward to the Great Duke, for whose sake I was named.

My father, being a younger brother, sought adventure in the land of France, where his handsome person and engaging manner won the smiles of Dame Fortune and my mother at one and the same cast. In due time I was born, and upon the day following that great event my father died. On the day of his burial my poor mother, unable to find in me either compensation or consolation for the loss of her child's father, also died, of a broken heart, it was said. But God was right, as usual, in taking my parents; for I should have brought them no happiness, unless perchance they could have moulded my life to a better form than it has had—a doubtful chance, since our great virtues and our chief faults are born and die with us. My faults, alas! have been many and great. In my youth I knew but one virtue: to love my friend; and that was strong within me. How fortunate for us it would be if we could begin our life in wisdom and end it in simplicity, instead of the reverse which now obtains!

I remained with my granduncle, the Great Duke, and was brought up amid the fighting, vice, and piety of his sumptuous court. I was trained to arms, and at an early age became Esquire in Waiting to his Grace of Guise. Most of my days between my fifteenth and twenty-fifth years were spent in the wars. At the age of twenty-five I returned to the château, there to reside as my uncle's representative, and to endure the ennui of peace. At the château I found a fair, tall girl, fifteen years of age: Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, soon afterward Queen of France and rightful heiress to the English throne. The ennui of peace, did I say? Soon I had no fear of its depressing effect, for Mary Stuart was one of those women near whose fascinations peace does not thrive. When I found her at the château, my martial ardor lost its warmth. Another sort of flame took up its home in my heart, and no power could have turned me to the wars again.

Ah! what a gay, delightful life, tinctured with bitterness, we led in the grand old château, and looking back at it how heartless, godless, and empty it seems. Do not from these words conclude that I am a fanatic, nor that I shall pour into your ears a ranter's tale; for cant is more to be despised even than godlessness; but during the period of my life of which I shall write I learned—but what I learned I shall in due time tell you.

While at the court of Guise I, like many another man, conceived for Mary Stuart a passion which lay heavy upon my heart for many years. Sweethearts I had by the scores, but she held my longings from all of them until I felt the touch of a pure woman's love, and then—but again I am going beyond my story.

I did not doubt, nor do I hesitate to say, that my passion was returned by Mary with a fervor which she felt for no other lover; but she was a queen, and I, compared with her, was nobody. For this difference of rank I have since had good cause to be thankful. Great beauty is diffusive in its tendency. Like the sun, it cannot shine for one alone. Still, it burns and dazzles the one as if it shone for him and for no other; and he who basks in its rays need have no fear of the ennui of peace.

The time came when I tasted the unutterable bitterness of Mary's marriage to a simpering fool, Francis II., whom she loathed, notwithstanding absurd stories of their sweet courtship and love.

After her marriage to Francis, Mary became hard and callous of heart, and all the world knows her sad history. The stories of Darnley, Rizzio, and Bothwell will be rich morsels, I suppose, for the morbid minds of men and women so long as books are read and scandal is loved.

Ah, well, that was long ago; so long ago that now as I write it seems but a shadow upon the horizon of time.

And so it happened that Francis died, and when the queen went back to Scotland to ascend her native throne, I went with her, and mothlike hovered near the blaze that burned but did not warm me.

Then in the course of time came the Darnley tragedy. I saw Rizzio killed. Gods! what a scene for hell was that! Then followed the Bothwell disgrace, the queen's imprisonment at Lochleven, and my own flight from Scotland to save my head.

You will hear of Mary again in this history, and still clinging to her you will find that same strange fatality which during all her life brought evils upon her that were infectious to her friends and wrought their ruin.

One evening, in the autumn of the year 1567, I was sitting moodily before my fire in the town of Dundee, brooding over Mary's disgraceful liaison with Bothwell. I had solemnly resolved that I would see her never again, and that I would turn my back upon the evil life I had led for so many years, and would seek to acquire that quiescence of nature which is necessary to an endurable old age. A tumultuous soul in the breast of an old man breeds torture, but age, with the heart at rest, I have found is the best season of life.

In the midst of my gloomy thoughts and good resolves my friend, Sir Thomas Douglas, entered my room without warning and in great agitation.

"Are you alone?" he asked hurriedly, in a low voice.

"Save for your welcome presence, Sir Thomas," I answered, offering my hand.

"The queen has been seized," he whispered, "and warrants for high treason have been issued against many of her friends—you among the number. Officers are now coming to serve the writ. I rode hither in all haste to warn you. Lose not a moment, but flee for your life. The Earl of Murray will be made regent to-morrow."

"My servant? My horse?" I responded.

"Do not wait. Go at once. I shall try to send a horse for you to Craig's ferry. If I fail, cross the firth without one. Here is a purse. The queen sends it to you. Go! Go!"

I acted upon the advice, of Sir Thomas and hurried into the street, snatching up my hat, cloak, and sword as I went. Night had fallen, and darkness and rain, which at first I was inclined to curse, proved to be my friends. I sought the back streets and alleys and walked rapidly toward the west gates of the city. Upon arriving at the gates I found them closed. I aroused the warden, and with the artful argument of gold had almost persuaded him to let me pass. My evident eagerness was my undoing, for in the hope of obtaining more gold the warden delayed opening the gates till two men approached on horseback, and, dismounting, demanded my surrender.

I laughed and said: "Two against one! Gentlemen, I am caught." I then drew my sword as if to offer it to them. My action threw the men off their guard, and when I said, "Here it is," I gave it to the one standing near me, but I gave it to him point first and in the heart.

It was a terrible thing to do, and bordered so closely on a broken parole that I was troubled in conscience. I had not, however, given my parole, nor had I surrendered; and if I had done so—if a man may take another's life in self-defence, may he not lie to save himself?

The other man shot at me with his fusil, but missed. He then drew his sword; but he was no match for me, and soon I left him sprawling on the ground, dead or alive, I knew not which.

At the time of which I write I was thirty-five years of age, and since my fifteenth birthday my occupations had been arms and the ladies—two arts requiring constant use if one would remain expert in their practice.

I escaped, and ran along the wall to a deep breach which had been left unrepaired. Over the sharp rocks I clambered, and at the risk of breaking my neck I jumped off the wall into the moat, which was almost dry. Dawn was breaking when I found a place to ascend from the moat, and I hastened to the fields and forests, where all day and all night long I wandered without food or drink. Two hours before sunrise next morning I reached Craig's Ferry. The horse sent by Douglas awaited me, but the ferry-master had been prohibited from carrying passengers across the firth, and I could not take the horse in a small boat. In truth, I was in great alarm lest I should be unable to cross, but I walked up the Tay a short distance, and found a fisherman, who agreed to take me over in his frail craft. Hardly had we started when another boat put out from shore in pursuit of us. We made all sail, but our pursuers overtook us when we were within half a furlong of the south bank, and as there were four men in the other boat, all armed with fusils, I peaceably stepped into their craft and handed my sword to their captain.

I seated myself on one of the thwarts well forward in the boat. By my side was a heavy iron boat-hook. I had noticed that all the occupants of the boat, except the fisherman who sailed her, wore armor; and when I saw the boat-hook, a diabolical thought entered my mind and I immediately acted upon its suggestion. Noiselessly I grasped the hook, and with its point pried loose a board in the bottom of the boat, first having removed my boots, cloak, and doublet. When the board was loosened I pressed my heel against it with all the force I could muster, and through an opening six inches broad and four feet long came a flood of water that swamped the boat before one could utter twenty words. I heard a cry from one of the men: "The dog has scuttled the boat. Shoot him!" At the same instant the blaze and noise of two fusils broke the still blackness of the night, but I was overboard and the powder and lead were wasted. The next moment the boat sank in ten fathoms of water, and with it went the men in armor. I hope the fisherman saved himself. I have often wondered if even the law of self-preservation justified my act. It is an awful thing to inflict death, but it is worse to endure it, and I feel sure that I am foolish to allow my conscience to trouble me for the sake of those who would have led me back to the scaffold.

I fear you will think that six dead men in less than as many pages make a record of bloodshed giving promise of terrible things to come, but I am glad I can reassure you on that point. Although there may be some good fighting ahead of us, I believe the last man has been killed of whom I shall chronicle—the last, that is, in fight or battle.

In truth, the history which you are about to read is not my own. It is the story of a beautiful, wilful girl, who was madly in love with the one man in all the world whom she should have avoided—as girls are wont to be. This perverse tendency, philosophers tell us, is owing to the fact that the unattainable is strangely alluring to womankind. I, being a man, shall not, of course, dwell upon the foibles of my own sex. It were a foolish candor.

As I said, there will be some good fighting ahead of us, for love and battle usually go together. One must have warm, rich blood to do either well; and, save religion, there is no source more fruitful of quarrels and death than that passion which is the source of life.

You, of course, know without the telling, that I reached land safely after I scuttled the boat, else I should not be writing this forty years afterwards.

The sun had risen when I waded ashore. I was swordless, coatless, hatless, and bootless; but I carried a well-filled purse in my belt. Up to that time I had given no thought to my ultimate destination; but being for the moment safe, I pondered the question and determined to make my way to Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, where I was sure a warm welcome would await me from my cousin, Sir George Vernon. How I found a peasant's cottage, purchased a poor horse and a few coarse garments, and how in the disguise of a peasant I rode southward to the English border, avoiding the cities and the main highways, might interest you; but I am eager to come to my story, and I will not tell you of my perilous journey.

One frosty morning, after many hairbreadth escapes, I found myself well within the English border, and turned my horse's head toward the city of Carlisle. There I purchased a fine charger. I bought clothing fit for a gentleman, a new sword, a hand-fusil, a breastplate, and a steel-lined cap, and feeling once again like a man rather than like a half-drowned rat, I turned southward for Derbyshire and Haddon Hall.

When I left Scotland I had no fear of meeting danger in England; but at Carlisle I learned that Elizabeth held no favor toward Scottish refugees. I also learned that the direct road from Carlisle to Haddon, by way of Buxton, was infested with English spies who were on the watch for friends of the deposed Scottish queen. Several Scotchmen had been arrested, and it was the general opinion that upon one pretext or another they would be hanged. I therefore chose a circuitous road leading to the town of Derby, which lay south of Haddon at a distance of six or seven leagues. It would be safer for me to arrive at Haddon travelling from the south than from the north. Thus, after many days, I rode into Derby-town and stabled my horse at the Royal Arms.

I called for supper, and while I was waiting for my joint of beef a stranger entered the room and gave his orders in a free, offhand manner that stamped him a person of quality.

The night outside was cold. While the stranger and I sat before the fire we caught its infectious warmth, and when he showed a disposition to talk, I gladly fell in with his humor. Soon we were filling our glasses from the same bowl of punch, and we seemed to be on good terms with each other. But when God breathed into the human body a part of himself, by some mischance He permitted the devil to slip into the tongue and loosen it. My tongue, which ordinarily was fairly well behaved, upon this occasion quickly brought me into trouble.

I told you that the stranger and I seemed to be upon good terms. And so we were until I, forgetting for the moment Elizabeth's hatred of Mary's friends, and hoping to learn the stranger's name and quality, said:—

"My name is Vernon—Sir Malcolm Vernon, knight by the hand of Queen Mary of Scotland and of France." This remark, of course, required that my companion should in return make known his name and degree; but in place of so doing he at once drew away from me and sat in silence. I was older than he, and it had seemed to me quite proper and right that I should make the first advance. But instantly after I had spoken I regretted my words. I remembered not only my danger, being a Scottish refugee, but I also bethought me that I had betrayed myself. Aside from those causes of uneasiness, the stranger's conduct was an insult which I was in duty bound not to overlook. Neither was I inclined to do so, for I loved to fight. In truth, I loved all things evil.

"I regret, sir," said I, after a moment or two of embarrassing silence, "having imparted information that seems to annoy you. The Vernons, whom you may not know, are your equals in blood, it matters not who you are."

"I know of the Vernons," he replied coldly, "and I well know that they are of good blood and lineage. As for wealth, I am told Sir George could easily buy the estates of any six men in Derbyshire."

"You know Sir George?" I asked despite myself.

"I do not know him, I am glad to say," returned the stranger.

"By God, sir, you shall answer-"

"At your pleasure, Sir Malcolm."

"My pleasure is now," I retorted eagerly.

I threw off my doublet and pushed the table and chairs against the wall to make room for the fight; but the stranger, who had not drawn his sword, said:—

"I have eaten nothing since morning, and I am as hungry as a wolf. I would prefer to fight after supper; but if you insist—"

"I do insist," I replied. "Perhaps you will not care for supper when I have—"

"That may be true," he interrupted; "but before we begin I think it right to tell you, without at all meaning to boast of my skill, that I can kill you if I wish to do so. Therefore you must see that the result of our fight will be disagreeable to you in any case. You will die, or you will owe me your life."

His cool impertinence angered me beyond endurance. He to speak of killing me, one of the best swordsmen in France, where the art of sword-play is really an art! The English are but bunglers with a gentleman's blade, and should restrict themselves to pike and quarterstaff.

"Results be damned!" I answered. "I can kill you if I wish." Then it occurred to me that I really did not wish to kill the handsome young fellow toward whom I felt an irresistible attraction.

I continued: "But I prefer that you should owe me your life. I do not wish to kill you. Guard!"

My opponent did not lift his sword, but smilingly said:—

"Then why do you insist upon fighting? I certainly do not wish to kill you. In truth, I would be inclined to like you if you were not a Vernon."

"Damn your insolence! Guard! or I will run you through where you stand," I answered angrily.

"But why do we fight?" insisted the stubborn fellow, with a coolness that showed he was not one whit in fear of me.

"You should know," I replied, dropping my sword-point to the floor, and forgetting for the moment the cause of our quarrel. "I—I do not."

"Then let us not fight," he answered, "until we have discovered the matter of our disagreement."

At this remark neither of us could resist smiling. I had not fought since months before, save for a moment at the gates of Dundee, and I was loath to miss the opportunity, so I remained in thought during the space of half a minute and remembered our cause of war.

"Oh! I recall the reason for our fighting," I replied, "and a good one it was. You offered affront to the name of Sir George Vernon, and insultingly refused me the courtesy of your name after I had done you the honor to tell you mine."

"I did not tell you my name," replied the stranger, "because I believed you would not care to hear it; and I said I was glad not to know Sir George Vernon because—because he is my father's enemy. I am Sir John Manners. My father is Lord Rutland."

Then it was my turn to recede. "You certainly are right. I do not care to hear your name."

I put my sword in its scabbard and drew the table back to its former place. Sir John stood in hesitation for a moment or two, and then said:—

"Sir Malcolm, may we not declare a truce for to-night? There is nothing personal in the enmity between us."

"Nothing," I answered, staring at the fire, half regretful that we bore each other enmity at all.

"You hate me, or believe you do," said Manners, "because your father's cousin hates my father; and I try to make myself believe that I hate you because my father hates your father's cousin. Are we not both mistaken?"

I was quick to anger and to fight, but no man's heart was more sensitive than mine to the fair touch of a kind word.

"I am not mistaken, Sir John, when I say that I do not hate you," I answered.

"Nor do I hate you, Sir Malcolm. Will you give me your hand?"

"Gladly," I responded, and I offered my hand to the enemy of my house.

"Landlord," I cried, "bring us two bottles of your best sack. The best in the house, mind you."

After our amicable understanding, Sir John and myself were very comfortable together, and when the sack and roast beef, for which the Royal Arms was justly famous, were brought in, we sat down to an enjoyable meal.

After supper Sir John lighted a small roll or stick made from the leaves of tobacco. The stick was called a cigarro, and I, proud not to be behind him in new-fashioned, gentlemanly accomplishments, called to the landlord for a pipe. Manners interrupted me when I gave the order and offered me a cigarro which I gladly accepted.

Despite my effort to reassure myself, I could not quite throw off a feeling of uneasiness whenever I thought of the manner in which I had betrayed to Sir John the fact that I was a friend to Mary Stuart. I knew that treachery was not native to English blood, and my knowledge of mankind had told me that the vice could not live in Sir John Manners's heart. But he had told me of his residence at the court of Elizabeth, and I feared trouble might come to me from the possession of so dangerous a piece of knowledge by an enemy of my house.

I did not speak my thoughts upon the matter, and we sat the evening through discussing many subjects. We warmed toward each other and became quite confidential. I feel ashamed when I admit that one of my many sins was an excessive indulgence in wine. While I was not a drunkard, I was given to my cups sometimes in a degree both dangerous and disgraceful; and during the evening of which I have just spoken I talked to Sir John with a freedom that afterward made me blush, although my indiscretion brought me no greater trouble.

My outburst of confidence was prompted by Sir John's voluntary assurance that I need fear nothing from having told him that I was a friend of Queen Mary. The Scottish queen's name had been mentioned, and Sir John had said—

"I take it, Sir Malcolm, that you are newly arrived in England, and I feel sure you will accept the advice I am about to offer in the kindly spirit in which it is meant. I deem it unsafe for you to speak of Queen Mary's friendship in the open manner you have used toward me. Her friends are not welcome visitors to England, and I fear evil will befall those who come to us as refugees. You need have no fear that I will betray you. Your secret is safe with me. I will give you hostage. I also am Queen Mary's friend. I would not, of course, favor her against the interest of our own queen. To Elizabeth I am and always shall be loyal; but the unfortunate Scottish queen has my sympathy in her troubles, and I should be glad to help her. I hear she is most beautiful and gentle in person."

Thus you see the influence of Mary's beauty reached from Edinburgh to London. A few months only were to pass till this conversation was to be recalled by each of us, and the baneful influence of Mary's beauty upon all whom it touched was to be shown more fatally than had appeared even in my own case. In truth, my reason for speaking so fully concerning the, Scottish queen and myself will be apparent to you in good time.

When we were about to part for the night, I asked Sir John, "What road do you travel to-morrow?"

"I am going to Rutland Castle by way of Rowsley," he answered.

"I, too, travel by Rowsley to Haddon Hall. Shall we not extend our truce over the morrow and ride together as far as Rowsley?" I asked.

"I shall be glad to make the truce perpetual," he replied laughingly.

"So shall I," was my response.

Thus we sealed our compact and knitted out of the warp and woof of enmity a friendship which became a great joy and a sweet grief to each of us.

That night I lay for hours thinking of the past and wondering about the future. I had tasted the sweets—all flavored with bitterness—of court life. Women, wine, gambling, and fighting had given me the best of all the evils they had to offer. Was I now to drop that valorous life, which men so ardently seek, and was I to take up a browsing, kinelike existence at Haddon Hall, there to drone away my remaining days in fat'ning, peace, and quietude? I could not answer my own question, but this I knew: that Sir George Vernon was held in high esteem by Elizabeth, and I felt that his house was, perhaps, the only spot in England where my head could safely lie. I also had other plans concerning Sir George and his household which I regret to say I imparted to Sir John in the sack-prompted outpouring of my confidence. The plans of which I shall now speak had been growing in favor with me for several months previous to my enforced departure from Scotland, and that event had almost determined me to adopt them. Almost, I say, for when I approached Haddon Hall I wavered in my resolution.

At the time when I had last visited Sir George at Haddon, his daughter Dorothy—Sir George called her Doll—was a slipshod girl of twelve. She was exceedingly plain, and gave promise of always so remaining. Sir George, who had no son, was anxious that his vast estates should remain in the Vernon name. He had upon the occasion of my last visit intimated to me that when Doll should become old enough to marry, and I, perchance, had had my fill of knocking about the world, a marriage might be brought about between us which would enable him to leave his estates to his daughter and still to retain the much-loved Vernon name for his descendants.

Owing to Doll's rusty red hair, slim shanks, and freckled face, the proposition had not struck me with favor, yet to please Sir George I had feigned acquiescence, and had said that when the time should come, we would talk it over. Before my flight from Scotland I had often thought of Sir George's proposition made six or seven years before. My love for Mary Stuart had dimmed the light of other beauties in my eyes, and I had never married. For many months before my flight, however, I had not been permitted to bask in the light of Mary's smiles to the extent of my wishes. Younger men, among them Darnley, who was but eighteen years of age, were preferred to me, and I had begun to consider the advisability of an orderly retreat from the Scottish court before my lustre should be entirely dimmed. It is said that a man is young so long as he is strong, and I was strong as in the days of my youth. My cheeks were fresh, my eyes were bright, and my hair was red as when I was twenty, and without a thread of gray. Still, my temperament was more exacting and serious, and the thought of becoming settled for life, or rather for old age and death, was growing in favor with me. With that thought came always a suggestion of slim, freckled Dorothy and Sir George's offer. She held out to me wealth and position, a peaceful home for my old age, and a grave with a pompous, pious epitaph at Bakewell church, in death.

When I was compelled to leave Scotland, circumstances forced me to a decision, and my resolution was quickly taken. I would go to Derbyshire and would marry Dorothy. I did not expect ever again to feel great love for a woman. The fuse, I thought, had burned out when I loved Mary Stuart. One woman, I believed, was like another to me, and Dorothy would answer as well as any for my wife. I could and would be kind to her, and that alone in time would make me fond. It is true, my affection would be of a fashion more comfortable than exciting; but who, having passed his galloping youth, will contemn the joys that come from making others happy? I believe there is no person, past the age of forty, at all given to pondering the whys of life, who will gainsay that the joy we give to others is our chief source of happiness. Why, then, should not a wise man, through purely selfish motives, begin early to cultivate the gentle art of giving joy?

But the fates were to work out the destinies of Dorothy and myself without our assistance. Self-willed, arrogant creatures are those same fates, but they save us a deal of trouble by assuming our responsibilities.

CHAPTER II

THE IRON, THE SEED, THE CLOUD, AND THE RAIN

The morning following my meeting with Manners, he and I made an early start. An hour before noon we rode into the town of Rowsley and halted at The Peacock for dinner.

When we entered the courtyard of the inn we saw three ladies warmly wrapped in rich furs leave a ponderous coach and walk to the inn door, which they entered. One of them was an elderly lady whom I recognized as my cousin, Lady Dorothy Crawford, sister to Sir George Vernon. The second was a tall, beautiful girl, with an exquisite ivory-like complexion and a wonderful crown of fluffy red hair which encircled her head like a halo of sunlit glory. I could compare its wondrous lustre to no color save that of molten gold deeply alloyed with copper. But that comparison tells you nothing. I can find no simile with which to describe the beauties of its shades and tints. It was red, but it also was golden, as if the enamoured sun had gilded every hair with its radiance. In all my life I had never seen anything so beautiful as this tall girl's hair. Still, it was the Vernon red. My cousin, Sir George, and many Vernons had hair of the same color. Yet the girl's hair differed from all other I had ever seen. It had a light and a lustre of its own which was as distinct from the ordinary Vernon red, although that is very good and we are proud of it, as the sheen of gold is from the glitter of brass. I knew by the girl's hair that she was my cousin, Dorothy Vernon, whom I reluctantly had come to wed.

I asked myself, "Can this be the plain, freckled girl I knew seven years ago?" Compared with her beauty even Mary Stuart's was pale as the vapid moon at dawn. The girl seemed to be the incarnated spirit of universal life and light, and I had condescendingly come to marry this goddess. I felt a dash of contemptuous pity for my complacent self.

In my cogitations concerning marriage with Dorothy Vernon, I had not at all taken into consideration her personal inclination. A girl, after all, is but the chattel of her father, and must, perforce, if needs be, marry the man who is chosen for her. But leaving parental authority out of the question, a girl with brick-red hair and a multitude of freckles need not be considered when an agreeable, handsome man offers himself as a husband. She usually is willing to the point of eagerness. That is the manner in which I had thought about Dorothy Vernon, if I considered her at all. But when a man is about to offer himself to a goddess, he is apt to pause. In such a case there are always two sides to the question, and nine chances to one the goddess will coolly take possession of both. When I saw Dorothy in the courtyard of The Peacock, I instantly knew that she was a girl to be taken into account in all matters wherein she was personally concerned. Her every feature, every poise and gesture, unconsciously bore the stamp of "I will" or "I will not."

Walking by Dorothy's side, holding her hand, was a fair young woman whose hair was black, and whose skin was of the white, clear complexion such as we see in the faces of nuns. She walked with a hesitating, cautious step, and clung to Dorothy, who was gentle and attentive to her. But of this fair, pale girl I have so much to say in the pages to come that I shall not further describe her here.

When the ladies had entered the inn, my companion and I dismounted, and Manners exclaimed:—

"Did you see the glorious girl who but now entered the inn door? Gods! I never before saw such beauty."

"Yes," I replied, "I know her."

"How fortunate I am," said Sir John. "Perhaps I may induce you to present me to her. At least you will tell me her name, that I may seek her acquaintance by the usual means. I am not susceptible, but by my faith, I—I—she looked at me from the door-steps, and when I caught her eyes it seemed—that is, I saw—or I felt a stream of burning life enter my soul, and—but you will think I am a fool. I know I am a fool. But I feel as if I were—as if I had been bewitched in one little second of time, and by a single glance from a pair of brown eyes. You certainly will think I am a fool, but you cannot understand—"

"Why can't I understand?" I asked indignantly. "The thing you have seen and felt has been in this world long enough for every man to understand. Eve used it upon Adam. I can't understand? Damme, sir, do you think I am a clod? I have felt it fifty times."

"Not—" began Sir John, hesitatingly.

"Nonsense!" I replied. "You, too, will have the same experience fifty times again before you are my age."

"But the lady," said Sir John, "tell me of her. Will you—can you present me to her? If not, will you tell me who she is?"

I remained for a moment in thought, wondering if it were right for me to tell him that the girl whom he so much admired was the daughter of his father's enemy. I could see no way of keeping Dorothy's name from him, so I determined to tell him.

"She is my cousin, Mistress Dorothy Vernon," I said. "The eldest is Lady Dorothy Crawford. The beautiful, pale girl I do not know."

"I am sorry," returned Sir John; "she is the lady whom you have come to marry, is she not?"

"Y-e-s," said I, hesitatingly.

"You certainly are to be congratulated," returned Manners.

"I doubt if I shall marry her," I replied.

"Why?" asked Manners.

"For many reasons, chief among which is her beauty."

"That is an unusual reason for declining a woman," responded Sir John, with a low laugh.

"I think it is quite usual," I replied, having in mind the difficulty with which great beauties are won. But I continued, "A woman of moderate beauty makes a safer wife, and in the long run is more comforting than one who is too attractive."

"You are a philosopher, Sir Malcolm," said Manners, laughingly.

"And a liar," I muttered to myself. I felt sure, however, that I should never marry Dorothy Vernon, and I do not mind telling you, even at this early stage in my history, that I was right in my premonition. I did not marry her.

"I suppose I shall now be compelled to give you up to your relatives," said Manners.

"Yes," I returned, "we must say good-by for the present; but if we do not meet again, it shall not be for the lack of my wishing. Your father and Sir George would feel deeply injured, should they learn of our friendship, therefore—"

"You are quite right," he interrupted. "It is better that no one should know of it. Nevertheless, between you and me let there be no feud."

"The secrecy of our friendship will give it zest," said I. "That is true, but 'good wine needs no bush.' You will not mention my name to the ladies?"

"No, if you wish that I shall not."

"I do so wish."

When the stable boys had taken our horses, I gave my hand to Sir John, after which we entered the inn and treated each other as strangers.

Soon after I had washed the stains of travel from my hands and face, I sent the maid to my cousins, asking that I might be permitted to pay my devotions, and Dorothy came to the tap-room in response to my message.

When she entered she ran to me with outstretched hands and a gleam of welcome in her eyes. We had been rare friends when she was a child.

"Ah, Cousin Malcolm, what a fine surprise you have given us!" she exclaimed, clasping both my hands and offering me her cheek to kiss. "Father's delight will be beyond measure when he sees you."

"As mine now is," I responded, gazing at her from head to foot and drinking in her beauty with my eyes. "Doll! Doll! What a splendid girl you have become. Who would have thought that—that—" I hesitated, realizing that I was rapidly getting myself into trouble.

"Say it. Say it, cousin! I know what is in your mind. Rusty red hair, angular shoulders, sharp elbows, freckles thickly set as stars upon a clear night, and so large and brown that they fairly twinkled. Great staring green eyes. Awkward!—" And she threw up her hands in mimic horror at the remembrance. "No one could have supposed that such a girl would have become—that is, you know," she continued confusedly, "could have changed. I haven't a freckle now," and she lifted her face that I might prove the truth of her words by examination, and perhaps that I might also observe her beauty.

Neither did I waste the opportunity. I dwelt longingly upon the wondrous red golden hair which fringed her low broad forehead, and upon the heavy black eyebrows, the pencilled points of whose curves almost touched across the nose. I saw the rose-tinted ivory of her skin and the long jet lashes curving in a great sweep from her full white lids, and I thought full sure that Venus herself was before me. My gaze halted for a moment at the long eyes which changed chameleon-like with the shifting light, and varied with her moods from deep fathomless green to violet, and from violet to soft voluptuous brown, but in all their tints beaming forth a lustre that would have stirred the soul of an anchorite. Then I noted the beauty of her clean-cut saucy nose and the red arch of her lips, slightly parted for the purpose of showing her teeth. But I could not stop long to dwell upon any one especial feature, for there were still to be seen her divine round chin, her large white throat, and the infinite grace in poise and curve of her strong young form. I dared not pause nor waste my time if I were to see it all, for such a girl as Dorothy waits no man's leisure—that is, unless she wishes to wait. In such case there is no moving her, and patience becomes to her a delightful virtue.

After my prolonged scrutiny Dorothy lowered her face and said laughingly:—

"Now come, cousin, tell me the truth. Who would have thought it possible?"

"Not I, Doll, not I, if you will pardon me the frankness."

"Oh, that is easily done." Then with a merry ripple of laughter, "It is much easier, I fancy, for a woman to speak of the time when she was plain than to refer to the time when—when she was beautiful. What an absurd speech that is for me to make," she said confusedly.

"I certainly did not expect to find so great a change," said I. "Why, Doll, you are wondrous, glorious, beautiful. I can't find words—"

"Then don't try, Cousin Malcolm," she said with a smile that fringed her mouth in dimples. "Don't try. You will make me vain."

"You are that already, Doll," I answered, to tease her.

"I fear I am, cousin—vain as a man. But don't call me Doll. I am tall enough to be called Dorothy."

She straightened herself up to her full height, and stepping close to my side, said: "I am as tall as you. I will now try to make you vain. You look just as young and as handsome as when I last saw you and so ardently admired your waving black mustachio and your curling chin beard."

"Did you admire them, Doll—Dorothy?" I asked, hoping, though with little faith, that the admiration might still continue.

"Oh, prodigiously," she answered with unassuring candor. "Prodigiously. Now who is vain, Cousin Malcolm François de Lorraine Vernon?"

"I," I responded, shrugging my shoulders and confessing by compulsion.

"But you must remember," she continued provokingly, "that a girl of twelve is very immature in her judgment and will fall in love with any man who allows her to look upon him twice."

"Then I am to believe that the fire begins very early to burn in the feminine heart," I responded.

"With birth, my cousin, with birth," she replied; "but in my heart it burned itself out upon your curling beard at the mature age of twelve."

"And you have never been in love since that time, Doll—Dorothy?" I asked with more earnestness in my heart than in my voice.

"No, no; by the Virgin, no! Not even in the shadow of a thought. And by the help of the Virgin I hope I never shall be; for when it comes to me, mark my word, cousin, there will be trouble in Derbyshire."

"By my soul, I believe you speak the truth," I answered, little dreaming how quickly our joint prophecy would come true.

I then asked Dorothy to tell me about her father.

"Father is well in health," she said. "In mind he has been much troubled and disturbed. Last month he lost the lawsuit against detestable old Lord Rutland. He was much angered by the loss, and has been moody and morose in brooding over it ever since. He tries, poor father, to find relief from his troubles, and—and I fear takes too much liquor. Rutland and his friends swore to one lie upon another, and father believes that the judge who tried the case was bribed. Father intends to appeal to Parliament, but even in Parliament he fears he cannot obtain justice. Lord Rutland's son—a disreputable fellow, who for many years has lived at court—is a favorite with the queen, and his acquaintance with her Majesty and with the lords will be to father's prejudice."

"I have always believed that your father stood in the queen's good graces?" I said interrogatively.

"So he does, but I have been told that this son of Lord Rutland, whom I have never seen, has the beauty of—of the devil, and exercises a great influence over her Majesty and her friends. The young man is not known in this neighborhood, for he has never deigned to leave the court; but Lady Cavendish tells me he has all the fascinations of Satan. I would that Satan had him."

"The feud still lives between Vernon and Rutland?" I asked.

"Yes, and it will continue to live so long as an ounce of blood can hold a pound of hatred," said the girl, with flashing eyes and hard lips. "I love to hate the accursed race. They have wronged our house for three generations, and my father has suffered greater injury at their hands than any of our name. Let us not talk of the hateful subject."

We changed the topic. I had expected Dorothy to invite me to go with her to meet Lady Crawford, but the girl seemed disinclined to leave the tap-room. The Peacock was her father's property, and the host and hostess were her friends after the manner of persons in their degree. Therefore Dorothy felt at liberty to visit the tap-room quite as freely as if it had been the kitchen of Haddon Hall.

During our conversation I had frequently noticed Dorothy glancing slyly in the direction of the fireplace; but my back was turned that way, and I did not know, nor did it at first occur to me to wonder what attracted her attention. Soon she began to lose the thread of our conversation, and made inappropriate, tardy replies to my remarks. The glances toward the fireplace increased in number and duration, and her efforts to pay attention to what I was saying became painful failures.

After a little time she said: "Is it not cool here? Let us go over to the fireplace where it is warmer."

I turned to go with her, and at once saw that it was not the fire in the fireplace which had attracted Dorothy, but quite a different sort of flame. In short, much to my consternation, I discovered that it was nothing less than my handsome new-found friend, Sir John Manners, toward whom Dorothy had been glancing.

We walked over to the fireplace, and one of the fires, Sir John, moved away. But the girl turned her face that she might see him in his new position. The movement, I confess, looked bold to the point of brazenness; but if the movement was bold, what shall I say of her glances and the expression of her face? She seemed unable to take her eager eyes from the stranger, or to think of anything but him, and after a few moments she did not try. Soon she stopped talking entirely and did not even hear what I was saying. I, too, became silent, and after a long pause the girl asked:—

"Cousin, who is the gentleman with whom you were travelling?"

I was piqued by Dorothy's conduct, and answered rather curtly: "He is a stranger. I picked him up at Derby, and we rode here together."

A pause followed, awkward in its duration.

"Did you—not—learn—his—name?" asked Dorothy, hesitatingly.

"Yes," I replied.

Then came another pause, broken by the girl, who spoke in a quick, imperious tone touched with irritation:—

"Well, what is it?"

"It is better that I do not tell you," I answered. "It was quite by accident that we met. Neither of us knew the other. Please do not ask me to tell you his name."

"Oh, but you make me all the more eager to learn. Mystery, you know, is intolerable to a woman, except in the unravelling. Come, tell me! Tell me! Not, of course, that I really care a farthing to know—but the mystery! A mystery drives me wild. Tell me, please do, Cousin Malcolm."

She certainly was posing for the stranger's benefit, and was doing all in her power, while coaxing me, to display her charms, graces, and pretty little ways. Her attitude and conduct spoke as plainly as the spring bird's song speaks to its mate. Yet Dorothy's manner did not seem bold. Even to me it appeared modest, beautiful, and necessary. She seemed to act under compulsion. She would laugh, for the purpose, no doubt, of showing her dimples and her teeth, and would lean her head to one side pigeon-wise to display her eyes to the best advantage, and then would she shyly glance toward Sir John to see if he was watching her. It was shameless, but it could not be helped by Dorothy nor any one else. After a few moments of mute pleading by the girl, broken now and then by, "Please, please," I said:—

"If you give to me your promise that you will never speak of this matter to any person, I will tell you the gentleman's name. I would not for a great deal have your father know that I have held conversation with him even for a moment, though at the time I did not know who he was."

"Oh, this is delightful! He must be some famous, dashing highwayman. I promise, of course I promise—faithfully." She was glancing constantly toward Manners, and her face was bright with smiles and eager with anticipation.

"He is worse than a highwayman, I regret to say. The gentleman toward whom you are so ardently glancing is—Sir John Manners."

A shock of pain passed over Dorothy's face, followed by a hard, repellent expression that was almost ugly.

"Let us go to Aunt Dorothy," she said, as she turned and walked across the room toward the door.

When we had closed the door of the tap-room behind us Dorothy said angrily:—

"Tell me, cousin, how you, a Vernon, came to be in his company?"

"I told you that I met him quite by accident at the Royal Arms in Derby-town. We became friends before either knew the other's name. After chance had disclosed our identities, he asked for a truce to our feud until the morrow; and he was so gentle and open in his conduct that I could not and would not refuse his proffered olive branch. In truth, whatever faults may be attributable to Lord Rutland,—and I am sure he deserves all the evil you have spoken of him,—his son, Sir John, is a noble gentleman, else I have been reading the book of human nature all my life in vain. Perhaps he is in no way to blame for his father's conduct He may have had no part in it"

"Perhaps he has not," said Dorothy, musingly.

It was not a pleasant task for me to praise Sir John, but my sense of justice impelled me to do so. I tried to make myself feel injured and chagrined because of Dorothy's manner toward him; for you must remember I had arranged with myself to marry this girl, but I could not work my feelings into a state of indignation against the heir to Rutland. The truth is, my hope of winning Dorothy had evaporated upon the first sight of her, like the volatile essence it really was. I cannot tell you why, but I at once seemed to realize that all the thought and labor which I had devoted to the arduous task of arranging with myself this marriage was labor lost. So I frankly told her my kindly feelings for Sir John, and gave her my high estimate of his character.

I continued: "You see, Dorothy, I could not so easily explain to your father my association with Sir John, and I hope you will not speak of it to any one, lest the news should reach Sir George's ears."

"I will not speak of it," she returned, sighing faintly. "After all, it is not his fault that his father is such a villain. He doesn't look like his father, does he?"

"I cannot say. I never saw Lord Rutland," I replied.

"He is the most villanous-looking—" but she broke off the sentence and stood for a moment in revery. We were in the darkened passage, and Dorothy had taken my hand. That little act in another woman of course would have led to a demonstration on my part, but in this girl it seemed so entirely natural and candid that it was a complete bar to undue familiarity. In truth, I had no such tendency, for the childish act spoke of an innocence and faith that were very sweet to me who all my life had lived among men and women who laughed at those simple virtues. The simple conditions of life are all that are worth striving for. They come to us fresh from Nature and from Nature's God. The complex are but concoctions of man after recipes in the devil's alchemy. So much gold, so much ambition, so much lust. Mix well. Product: so much vexation.

"He must resemble his mother," said Dorothy, after a long pause. "Poor fellow! His mother is dead. He is like me in that respect. I wonder if his father's villanies trouble him?"

"I think they must trouble him. He seems to be sad," said I, intending to be ironical.

My reply was taken seriously.

"I am sorry for him," she said, "it is not right to hate even our enemies. The Book tells us that."

"Yet you hate Lord Rutland," said I, amused and provoked.

Unexpected and dangerous symptoms were rapidly developing in the perverse girl, and trouble was brewing "in Derbyshire."

The adjective perverse, by the way, usually is superfluous when used to modify the noun girl.

"Yet you hate Lord Rutland," I repeated.

"Why, y-e-s," she responded. "I cannot help that, but you know it would be very wrong to—to hate all his family. To hate him is bad enough."

I soon began to fear that I had praised Sir John overmuch.

"I think Sir John is all there is of Lord Rutland's family," I said, alarmed yet amused at Dorothy's search for an excuse not to hate my new-found friend.

"Well," she continued after a pause, throwing her head to one side, "I am sorry there are no more of that family not to hate."

"Dorothy! Dorothy!" I exclaimed. "What has come over you? You surprise me."

"Yes," she answered, with a little sigh, "I certainly have surprised myself by—by my willingness to forgive those who have injured my house. I did not know there was so much—so much good in me."

"Mistress Pharisee," thought I, "you are a hypocrite."

Again intending to be ironical, I said, "Shall I fetch him from the tap-room and present him to you?"

Once more my irony was lost upon the girl. Evidently that sort of humor was not my strong point.

"No, no," she responded indignantly, "I would not speak to him for—" Again she broke her sentence abruptly, and after a little pause, short in itself but amply long for a girl like Dorothy to change her mind two score times, she continued: "It would not be for the best. What think you, Cousin Malcolm?"

"Surely the girl has gone mad," thought I. Her voice was soft and conciliating as if to say, "I trust entirely to your mature, superior judgment."

My judgment coincided emphatically with her words, and I said: "I spoke only in jest. It certainly would not be right. It would be all wrong if you were to meet him."

"That is true," the girl responded with firmness, "but—but no real harm could come of it," she continued, laughing nervously. "He could not strike me nor bite me. Of course it would be unpleasant for me to meet him, and as there is no need—I am curious to know what one of his race is like. It's the only reason that would induce me to consent. Of course you know there could be no other reason for me to wish—that is, you know—to be willing to meet him. Of course you know."

"Certainly," I replied, still clinging to my unsuccessful irony. "I will tell you all I know about him, so that you may understand what he is like. As for his personal appearance, you saw him, did you not?"

I thought surely that piece of irony would not fail, but it did, and I have seldom since attempted to use that form of humor.

"Yes—oh, yes, I saw him for a moment."

"But I will not present him to you, Dorothy, however much you may wish to meet him," I said positively.

"It is almost an insult, Cousin Malcolm, for you to say that I wish to meet him," she answered in well-feigned indignation.

The French blood in my veins moved me to shrug my shoulders. I could do nothing else. With all my knowledge of womankind this girl had sent me to sea.

But what shall we say of Dorothy's conduct? I fancy I can hear you mutter, "This Dorothy Vernon must have been a bold, immodest, brazen girl." Nothing of the sort. Dare you of the cold blood—if perchance there be any with that curse in their veins who read these lines—dare you, I say, lift your voice against the blessed heat in others which is but a greater, stronger, warmer spark of God's own soul than you possess or than you can comprehend? "Evil often comes of it," I hear you say. That I freely admit; and evil comes from eating too much bread, and from hearing too much preaching. But the universe, from the humblest blade of grass to the infinite essence of God, exists because of that warmth which the mawkish world contemns. Is the iron immodest when it creeps to the lodestone and clings to its side? Is the hen bird brazen when she flutters to her mate responsive to his compelling woo-song? Is the seed immodest when it sinks into the ground and swells with budding life? Is the cloud bold when it softens into rain and falls to earth because it has no other choice? or is it brazen when it nestles for a time on the bosom of heaven's arched dome and sinking into the fathomless depths of a blue black infinity ceases to be itself? Is the human soul immodest when, drawn by a force it cannot resist, it seeks a stronger soul which absorbs its ego as the blue sky absorbs the floating cloud, as the warm earth swells the seed, as the magnet draws the iron? All these are of one quality. The iron, the seed, the cloud, and the soul of man are what they are, do what they do, love as they love, live as they live, and die as they die because they must—because they have no other choice. We think we are free because at times we act as we please, forgetting that God gives us the "please," and that every act of our being is but the result of a dictated motive. Dorothy was not immodest. This was her case. She was the iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain. You, too, are the iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain. It is only human vanity which prompts you to believe that you are yourself and that you are free. Do you find any freedom in this world save that which you fondly believe to exist within yourself? Self! There is but one self, God. I have been told that the people of the East call Him Brahma. The word, it is said, means "Breath," "Inspiration," "All." I have felt that the beautiful pagan thought has truth in it; but my conscience and my priest tell me rather to cling to truths I have than to fly to others that I know not of. As a result, I shall probably die orthodox and mistaken.

CHAPTER III

THE PITCHER GOES TO THE WELL.

Dorothy and I went to the inn parlors, where I received a cordial welcome from my cousin, Lady Crawford. After our greeting, Dorothy came toward me leading the fair, pale girl whom I had seen in the courtyard.

"Madge, this is my cousin, Malcolm Vernon," said Dorothy. "He was a dear friend of my childhood and is much beloved by my father. Lady Magdalene Stanley, cousin," and she placed the girl's soft white hand in mine. There was a peculiar hesitancy in the girl's manner which puzzled me. She did not look at me when Dorothy placed her hand in mine, but kept her eyes cast down, the long, black lashes resting upon the fair curves of her cheek like a shadow on the snow. She murmured a salutation, and when I made a remark that called for a response, she lifted her eyes but seemed not to look at me. Unconsciously I turned my face toward Dorothy, who closed her eyes and formed with her lips the word "blind."

I retained the girl's hand, and she did not withdraw it. When I caught Dorothy's unspoken word I led Lady Madge to a chair and asked if I might sit beside her.

"Certainly," she answered smilingly; "you know I am blind, but I can hear and speak, and I enjoy having persons I like sit near me that I may touch them now and then while we talk. If I could only see!" she exclaimed. Still, there was no tone of complaint in her voice and very little even of regret. The girl's eyes were of a deep blue and were entirely without scar or other evidence of blindness, except that they did not seem to see. I afterward learned that her affliction had come upon her as the result of illness when she was a child. She was niece to the Earl of Derby, and Dorothy's mother had been her aunt. She owned a small estate and had lived at Haddon Hall five or six years because of the love that existed between her and Dorothy. A strong man instinctively longs to cherish that which needs his strength, and perhaps it was the girl's helplessness that first appealed to me. Perhaps it was her rare, peculiar beauty, speaking eloquently of virtue such as I had never known, that touched me. I cannot say what the impelling cause was, but this I know: my heart went out in pity to her, and all that was good within me—good, which I had never before suspected—stirred in my soul, and my past life seemed black and barren beyond endurance. Even Dorothy's marvellous beauty lacked the subtle quality which this simple blind girl possessed. The first step in regeneration is to see one's faults; the second is to regret them; the third is to quit them. The first and second steps constitute repentance; the second and third regeneration. One hour within the radius of Madge Stanley's influence brought me to repentance. But repentance is an everyday virtue. Should I ever achieve regeneration? That is one of the questions this history will answer. To me, Madge Stanley's passive force was the strongest influence for good that had ever impinged on my life. With respect to her, morally, I was the iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain, for she, acting unconsciously, moved me with neither knowledge nor volition on my part.

Soon after my arrival at the ladies' parlor dinner was served, and after dinner a Persian merchant was ushered in, closely followed by his servants bearing bales of rare Eastern fabrics. A visit and a dinner at the inn were little events that made a break in the monotony of life at the Hall, and the ladies preferred to visit the merchant, who was stopping at The Peacock for a time, rather than to have him take his wares to Haddon.

While Lady Crawford and Dorothy were revelling in Persian silks, satins, and gold cloths, I sat by Lady Madge and was more than content that we were left to ourselves. My mind, however, was as far from thoughts of gallantry as if she had been a black-veiled nun. I believe I have not told you that I was of the Holy Catholic Faith. My religion, I may say, has always been more nominal and political than spiritual, although there ran through it a strong vein of inherited tendencies and superstitions which were highly colored by contempt for heresy and heretics. I was Catholic by habit. But if I analyzed my supposed religious belief, I found that I had none save a hatred for heresy. Heretics, as a rule, were low-born persons, vulgarly moral, and as I had always thought, despisedly hypocritical. Madge Stanley, however, was a Protestant, and that fact shook the structure of my old mistakes to its foundation, and left me religionless.

After the Persian merchant had packed his bales and departed, Dorothy and Lady Crawford joined Madge and me near the fireplace. Soon Dorothy went over to the window and stood there gazing into the courtyard.

After a few minutes Lady Crawford said, "Dorothy, had we not better order Dawson to bring out the horses and coach?" Will Dawson was Sir George's forester.

Lady Crawford repeated her question, but Dorothy was too intently watching the scene in the courtyard to hear. I went over to her, and looking out at the window discovered the object of Dorothy's rapt attention. There is no need for me to tell you who it was. Irony, as you know, and as I had learned, was harmless against this thick-skinned nymph. Of course I had no authority to scold her, so I laughed. The object of Dorothy's attention was about to mount his horse. He was drawing on his gauntleted gloves and held between his teeth a cigarro. He certainly presented a handsome figure for the eyes of an ardent girl to rest upon while he stood beneath the window, clothed in a fashionable Paris-made suit of brown, doublet, trunks, and hose. His high-topped boots were polished till they shone, and his broad-rimmed hat, of soft beaver, was surmounted by a flowing plume. Even I, who had no especial taste nor love for masculine beauty, felt my sense of the beautiful strongly moved by the attractive picture my new-found friend presented. His dress, manner, and bearing, polished by the friction of life at a luxurious court, must have appeared god-like to Dorothy. She had never travelled farther from home than Buxton and Derby-town, and had met only the half-rustic men belonging to the surrounding gentry and nobility of Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Stafford. She had met but few even of them, and their lives had been spent chiefly in drinking, hunting, and gambling—accomplishments that do not fine down the texture of a man's nature or fit him for a lady's bower. Sir John Manners was a revelation to Dorothy; and she, poor girl, was bewildered and bewitched by him.

When John had mounted and was moving away, he looked up to the window where Dorothy stood, and a light came to her eyes and a smile to her face which no man who knows the sum of two and two can ever mistake if he but once sees it.

When I saw the light in Dorothy's eyes, I knew that all the hatred that was ever born from all the feuds that had ever lived since the quarrelling race of man began its feuds in Eden could not make Dorothy Vernon hate the son of her father's enemy.

"I was—was—watching him draw smoke through the—the little stick which he holds in his mouth, and—and blow it out again," said Dorothy, in explanation of her attitude. She blushed painfully and continued, "I hope you do not think—"

"I do not think," I answered. "I would not think of thinking."

"Of course not," she responded, with a forced smile, as she watched Sir John pass out of sight under the arch of the innyard gate. I did not think. I knew. And the sequel, so full of trouble, soon proved that I was right. After John had passed through the gate, Dorothy was willing to go home; and when Will Dawson brought the great coach to the inn door, I mounted my horse and rode beside the ladies to Haddon Hall, two miles north from Rowsley.

I shall not stop to tell you of the warm welcome given me by Sir George Vernon, nor of his delight when I briefly told him my misfortunes in Scotland—misfortunes that had brought me to Haddon Hall. Nor shall I describe the great boar's head supper given in my honor, at which there were twenty men who could have put me under the table. I thought I knew something of the art of drinking, but at that supper I soon found I was a mere tippler compared with these country guzzlers. At that feast I learned also that Dorothy, when she had hinted concerning Sir George's excessive drinking, had told the truth. He, being the host, drank with all his guests. Near midnight he grew distressingly drunk, talkative, and violent, and when toward morning he was carried from the room by his servants, the company broke up. Those who could do so reeled home; those who could not walk at all were put to bed by the retainers at Haddon Hall. I had chosen my bedroom high up in Eagle Tower. At table I had tried to remain sober. That, however, was an impossible task, for at the upper end of the hall there was a wrist-ring placed in the wainscoting at a height of ten or twelve inches above the head of an ordinary man, and if he refused to drink as much as the other guests thought he should, his wrist was fastened above his head in the ring, and the liquor which he should have poured down his throat was poured down his sleeve. Therefore to avoid this species of rustic sport I drank much more than was good for me. When the feast closed I thought I was sober enough to go to my room unassisted; so I took a candle, and with a great show of self-confidence climbed the spiral stone stairway to the door of my room. The threshold of my door was two or three feet above the steps of the stairway, and after I had contemplated the distance for a few minutes, I concluded that it would not be safe for me to attempt to climb into my sleeping apartments without help. Accordingly I sat down upon the step on which I had been standing, placed my candle beside me, called loudly for a servant, received no response, and fell asleep only to be awakened by one of Sir George's retainers coming downstairs next morning.

After that supper, in rapid succession, followed hunting and drinking, feasting and dancing in my honor. At the dances the pipers furnished the music, or, I should rather say, the noise. Their miserable wailings reminded me of Scotland. After all, thought I, is the insidious, polished vice of France worse than the hoggish, uncouth practices of Scotland and of English country life? I could not endure the latter, so I asked Sir George, on the pretext of ill health, to allow me to refuse invitations to other houses, and I insisted that he should give no more entertainments at Haddon Hall on my account. Sir George eagerly acquiesced in all my wishes. In truth, I was treated like an honored guest and a member of the family, and I congratulated myself that my life had fallen in such pleasant lines. Dorothy and Madge became my constant companions, for Sir George's time was occupied chiefly with his estates and with his duties as magistrate. A feeling of rest and contentment came over me, and my past life drifted back of me like an ever receding cloud.

Thus passed the months of October and November.

In the meantime events in Scotland and in England proved my wisdom in seeking a home at Haddon Hall, and showed me how great was my good fortune in finding it.

Queen Mary was a prisoner at Lochleven Castle, and her brother Murray had beheaded many of her friends. Elizabeth, hating Mary as only a plain, envious woman can hate one who is transcendently beautiful, had, upon different pretexts, seized many of Mary's friends who had fled to England for sanctuary, and some of them had suffered imprisonment or death.

Elizabeth, in many instances, had good cause for her attitude toward Mary's friends, since plots were hatching thick and fast to liberate Mary from Lochleven; and many such plots, undoubtedly, had for their chief end the deposition of Elizabeth, and the enthronement of Mary as Queen of England.

As a strict matter of law, Mary was rightful heir to the English throne, and Elizabeth was an usurper. Parliament, at Henry's request, had declared that Elizabeth, his issue by Anne Boleyn, was illegitimate, and that being true, Mary was next in line of descent. The Catholics of England took that stand, and Mary's beauty and powers of fascination had won for her friends even in the personal household of the Virgin Queen. Small cause for wonder was it that Elizabeth, knowing all these facts, looked with suspicion and fear upon Mary's refugee friends.

The English queen well knew that Sir George Vernon was her friend, therefore his house and his friendship were my sanctuary, without which my days certainly would have been numbered in the land of Elizabeth, and their number would have been small. I was dependent on Sir George not only for a roof to shelter me, but for my very life. I speak of these things that you may know some of the many imperative reasons why I desired to please and conciliate my cousin. In addition to those reasons, I soon grew to love Sir George, not only because of his kindness to me, but because he was a lovable man. He was generous, just, and frank, and although at times he was violent almost to the point of temporary madness, his heart was usually gentle, and was as easily touched by kindness as it was quickly moved to cruelty by injury, fancied or actual. I have never known a more cruel, tender man than he. You will see him in each of his natures before you have finished this history. But you must judge him only after you have considered his times, which were forty years ago, his surroundings, and his blood.

During those two months remarkable changes occurred within the walls of Haddon, chief of which were in myself, and, alas! in Dorothy.

My pilgrimage to Haddon, as you already know, had been made for the purpose of marrying my fair cousin; for I did not, at the time I left Scotland, suppose I should need Sir George's protection against Elizabeth. When I met Dorothy at Rowsley, my desire to marry her became personal, in addition to the mercenary motives with which I had originally started. But I quickly recognized the fact that the girl was beyond my reach. I knew I could not win her love, even though I had a thousand years to try for it; and I would not accept her hand in marriage solely at her father's command. I also soon learned that Dorothy was the child of her father, gentle, loving, and tender beyond the naming, but also wilful, violent, and fierce to the extent that no command could influence her.

First I shall speak of the change within myself. I will soon be done with so much "I" and "me," and you shall have Dorothy to your heart's content, or trouble, I know not which.

Soon after my arrival at Haddon Hall the sun ushered in one of those wonderful days known only to the English autumn, when the hush of Nature's drowsiness, just before her long winter's sleep, imparts its soft restfulness to man, as if it were a lotus feast. Dorothy was ostentatiously busy with her household matters, and was consulting with butler, cook, and steward. Sir George had ridden out to superintend his men at work, and I, wandering aimlessly about the hail, came upon Madge Stanley sitting in the chaplain's room with folded hands.

"Lady Madge, will you go with me for a walk this beautiful morning?" I asked.

"Gladly would I go, Sir Malcolm," she responded, a smile brightening her face and quickly fading away, "but I—I cannot walk in unfamiliar places. I should fail. You would have to lead me by the hand, and that, I fear, would mar the pleasure of your walk."

"Indeed, it would not, Lady Madge. I should enjoy my walk all the more."

"If you really wish me to go, I shall be delighted," she responded, as the brightness came again to her face. "I sometimes grow weary, and, I confess, a little sad sitting alone when Dorothy cannot be with me. Aunt Dorothy, now that she has her magnifying glasses,—spectacles, I think they are called,—devotes all her time to reading, and dislikes to be interrupted."

"I wish it very much," I said, surprised by the real eagerness of my desire, and unconsciously endeavoring to keep out of the tones of my voice a part of that eagerness.

"I shall take you at your word," she said. "I will go to my room to get my hat and cloak."

She rose and began to grope her way toward the door, holding out her white, expressive hands in front of her. It was pitiful and beautiful to see her, and my emotions welled up in my throat till I could hardly speak.

"Permit me to give you my hand," I said huskily. How I longed to carry her! Every man with the right sort of a heart in his breast has a touch of the mother instinct in him; but, alas I only a touch. Ah, wondrous and glorious womanhood! If you had naught but the mother instinct to lift you above your masters by the hand of man-made laws, those masters were still unworthy to tie the strings of your shoes.

"Thank you," said the girl, as she clasped my hand, and moved with confidence by my side. "This is so much better than the dreadful fear of falling. Even through these rooms where I have lived for many years I feel safe only in a few places,—on the stairs, and in my rooms, which are also Dorothy's. When Dorothy changes the position of a piece of furniture in the Hall, she leads me to it several times that I may learn just where it is. A long time ago she changed the position of a chair and did not tell me. I fell against it and was hurt. Dorothy wept bitterly over the mishap, and she has never since failed to tell me of such changes. I cannot make you know how kind and tender Dorothy is to me. I feel that I should die without her, and I know she would grieve terribly were we to part."

I could not answer. What a very woman you will think I was! I, who could laugh while I ran my sword through a man's heart, could hardly restrain my tears for pity of this beautiful blind girl.

"Thank you; that will do," she said, when we came to the foot of the great staircase. "I can now go to my rooms alone."

When she reached the top she hesitated and groped for a moment; then she turned and called laughingly to me while I stood at the bottom of the steps, "I know the way perfectly well, but to go alone in any place is not like being led."

"There are many ways in which one may be led, Lady Madge," I answered aloud. Then I said to myself, "That girl will lead you to Heaven, Malcolm, if you will permit her to do so."

But thirty-five years of evil life are hard to neutralize. There is but one subtle elixir that can do it—love; and I had not thought of that magic remedy with respect to Madge.

I hurriedly fetched my hat and returned to the foot of the staircase. Within a minute or two Madge came down stairs holding up the skirt of her gown with one hand, while she grasped the banister with the other. As I watched her descending I was enraptured with her beauty. Even the marvellous vital beauty of Dorothy could not compare with this girl's fair, pale loveliness. It seemed to be almost a profanation for me to admire the sweet oval of her face. Upon her alabaster skin, the black eyebrows, the long lashes, the faint blue veins and the curving red lips stood in exquisite relief. While she was descending the stairs, I caught a gleam of her round, snowy forearm and wrist; and when my eyes sought the perfect curves of her form disclosed by the clinging silk gown she wore, I felt that I had sinned in looking upon her, and I was almost glad she could not see the shame which was in my face.

"Cousin Malcolm, are you waiting?" she asked from midway in the staircase.

"Yes, I am at the foot of the steps," I answered.

"I called you 'Cousin Malcolm,'" she said, holding out her hand when she came near me. "Pardon me; it was a slip of the tongue. I hear 'Cousin Malcolm' so frequently from Dorothy that the name is familiar to me."

"I shall be proud if you will call me 'Cousin Malcolm' always. I like the name better than any that you can use."

"If you wish it," she said, in sweet, simple candor, "I will call you 'Cousin Malcolm,' and you may call me 'Cousin Madge' or 'Madge,' just as you please."

"'Cousin Madge' it shall be; that is a compact," I answered, as I opened the door and we walked out into the fresh air of the bright October morning.

"That will stand for our first compact; we are progressing famously," she said, with a low laugh of delight.

Ah, to think that the blind can laugh. God is good.

We walked out past the stables and the cottage, and crossed the river on the great stone bridge. Then we took our way down the babbling Wye, keeping close to its banks, while the dancing waters and even the gleaming pebbles seemed to dimple and smile as they softly sang their song of welcome to the fair kindred spirit who had come to visit them. If we wandered from the banks for but a moment, the waters seemed to struggle and turn in their course until they were again by her side, and then would they gently flow and murmur their contentment as they travelled forward to the sea, full of the memory of her sweet presence. And during all that time I led her by the hand. I tell you, friends, 'tis sweet to write of it.

When we returned we crossed the Wye by the stone footbridge and entered the garden below the terrace at the corner postern. We remained for an hour resting upon the terrace balustrade, and before we went indoors Madge again spoke of Dorothy.

"I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed this walk, nor how thankful I am to you for taking me," she said.

I did not interrupt her by replying, for I loved to hear her talk.

"Dorothy sometimes takes me with her for a short walk, but I seldom have that pleasure. Walking is too slow for Dorothy. She is so strong and full of life. She delights to ride her mare Dolcy. Have you seen Dolcy?"

"No," I responded.

"You must see her at once. She is the most beautiful animal in the world. Though small of limb, she is swift as the wind, and as easy as a cradle in her gaits. She is mettlesome and fiery, but full of affection. She often kisses Dorothy. Mare and rider are finely mated. Dorothy is the most perfect woman, and Dolcy is the most perfect mare. 'The two D's,' we call them. But Dorothy says we must be careful not to put a—a dash between them," she said with a laugh and a blush.

Then I led Madge into the hall, and she was blithe and happy as if the blessed light of day were in her eyes. It was in her soul, and that, after all, is where it brings the greatest good.

After that morning, Madge and I frequently walked out when the days were pleasant. The autumn was mild, well into winter time, and by the end of November the transparent cheeks of the blind girl held an exquisite tinge of color, and her form had a new grace from the strength she had acquired in exercise. We had grown to be dear friends, and the touch of her hand was a pleasure for which I waited eagerly from day to day. Again I say thoughts of love for her had never entered my mind. Perhaps their absence was because of my feeling that they could not possibly exist in her heart for me.

One evening in November, after the servants had all gone to bed, Sir George and I went to the kitchen to drink a hot punch before retiring for the night. I drank a moderate bowl and sat in a large chair before the fire, smoking a pipe of tobacco, while Sir George drank brandy toddy at the massive oak table in the middle of the room.

Sir George was rapidly growing drunk. He said: "Dawson tells me that the queen's officers arrested another of Mary Stuart's damned French friends at Derby-town yesterday,—Count somebody; I can't pronounce their miserable names."

"Can you not remember his name?" I asked. "He may be a friend of mine." My remark was intended to remind Sir George that his language was offensive to me.

"That is true, Malcolm," responded Sir George. "I beg your pardon. I meant to speak ill only of Mary's meddlesome friends, who are doing more injury than good to their queen's cause by their plotting."

I replied: "No one can regret these plots more than I do. They certainly will work great injury to the cause they are intended to help. But I fear many innocent men are made to suffer for the few guilty ones. Without your protection, for which I cannot sufficiently thank you, my life here would probably be of short duration. After my misfortunes in Scotland, I know not what I should have done had it not been for your generous welcome. I lost all in Scotland, and it would now be impossible for me to go to France. An attempt on my part to escape would result in my arrest. Fortune certainly has turned her capricious back upon me, with the one exception that she has left me your friendship."

"Malcolm, my boy," said Sir George, drawing his chair toward me, "that which you consider your loss is my great gain. I am growing old, and if you, who have seen so much of the gay world, will be content to live with us and share our dulness and our cares, I shall be the happiest man in England."

"I thank you more than I can tell," I said, careful not to commit myself to any course.

"Barring my quarrel with the cursed race of Manners," continued Sir George, "I have little to trouble me; and if you will remain with us, I thank God I may leave the feud in good hands. Would that I were young again only for a day that I might call that scoundrel Rutland and his imp of a son to account in the only manner whereby an honest man may have justice of a thief. There are but two of them, Malcolm,—father and son,—and if they were dead, the damned race would be extinct."

I believe that Sir George Vernon when sober could not have spoken in that fashion even of his enemies.

I found difficulty in replying to my cousin's remarks, so I said evasively:—

"I certainly am the most fortunate of men to find so warm a welcome from you, and so good a home as that which I have at Haddon Hall. When I met Dorothy at the inn, I knew at once by her kindness that my friends of old were still true to me. I was almost stunned by Dorothy's beauty."

My mention of Dorothy was unintentional and unfortunate. I had shied from the subject upon several previous occasions, but Sir George was continually trying to lead up to it. This time my lack of forethought saved him the trouble.

"Do you really think that Doll is very beautiful—so very beautiful? Do you really think so, Malcolm?" said the old gentleman, rubbing his hands in pride and pleasure.

"Surprisingly beautiful," I answered, seeking hurriedly through my mind for an excuse to turn the conversation. I had within two months learned one vital fact: beautiful as Dorothy was, I did not want her for my wife, and I could not have had her even were I dying for love. The more I learned of Dorothy and myself during the autumn through which I had just passed—and I had learned more of myself than I had been able to discover in the thirty-five previous years of my life—the more clearly I saw the utter unfitness of marriage between us.

"In all your travels," asked Sir George, leaning his elbows upon his knees and looking at his feet between his hands, "in all your travels and court life have you ever seen a woman who was so beautiful as my girl Doll?"

His pride in Dorothy at times had a tinge of egotism and selfishness. It seemed to be almost the pride of possession and ownership. "My girl!" The expression and the tone in which the words were spoken sounded as if he had said: "My fine horse," "My beautiful Hall," or "My grand estates." Dorothy was his property. Still, he loved the girl passionately. She was dearer to him than all his horses, cattle, halls, and estates put together, and he loved even them to excess. He loved all that he possessed; whatever was his was the best of the sort. Such a love is apt to grow up in the breasts of men who have descended from a long line of proprietary ancestors, and with all its materialism it has in it possibilities of great good. The sturdy, unflinching patriotism of the English people springs from this source. The thought, "That which I possess is the best," has beauty and use in it, though it leads men to treat other men, and, alas! women, as mere chattels. All this was passing through my mind, and I forgot to answer Sir George's question.

"Have you ever seen a woman more beautiful than Doll?" he again asked.

"I certainly have never seen one whose beauty may even be compared with Dorothy's," I answered.

"And she is young, too," continued Sir George; "she is not yet nineteen."

"That is very young," I answered, not knowing what else to say.

"And she will be rich some day. Very rich. I am called 'King of the Peak,' you know, and there are not three estates in Derbyshire which, if combined, would equal mine."

"That is true, cousin," I answered, "and I rejoice in your good fortune."

"Dorothy will have it all one of these days—all, all," continued my cousin, still looking at his feet.

After a long pause, during which Sir George took several libations from his bowl of toddy, he cleared his throat and said, "So Dorothy is the most beautiful girl and the richest heiress you know?"

"Indeed she is," I responded, knowing full well what he was leading up to. Realizing that in spite of me he would now speak his mind, I made no attempt to turn the current of the conversation.

After another long pause, and after several more draughts from the bowl, my old friend and would-be benefactor said: "You may remember a little conversation between us when you were last at Haddon six or seven years ago, about—about Dorothy? You remember?"

I, of course, dared not pretend that I had forgotten.

"Yes, I remember," I responded.

"What do you think of the proposition by this time?" asked Sir George. "Dorothy and all she will inherit shall be yours—"

"Stop, stop, Sir George!" I exclaimed. "You do not know what you say. No one but a prince or a great peer of the realm is worthy of aspiring to Dorothy's hand. When she is ready to marry you should take her to London court, where she can make her choice from among the nobles of our land. There is not a marriageable duke or earl in England who would not eagerly seek the girl for a wife. My dear cousin, your generosity overwhelms me, but it must not be thought of. I am utterly unworthy of her in person, age, and position. No! no!"

"But listen to me, Malcolm," responded Sir George. "Your modesty, which, in truth, I did not know you possessed, is pleasing to me; but I have reasons of my own for wishing that you should marry Dorothy. I want my estates to remain in the Vernon name, and one day you or your children will make my house and my name noble. You and Dorothy shall go to court, and between you—damme! if you can't win a dukedom, I am no prophet. You would not object to change your faith, would you?"

"Oh, no," I responded, "of course I should not object to that."

"Of course not. I knew you were no fool," said Sir George. "Age! why, you are only thirty-five years old—little more than a matured boy. I prefer you to any man in England for Dorothy's husband."

"You overwhelm me with your kindness," I returned, feeling that I was being stranded on a very dangerous shore, amidst wealth and beauty.

"Tut, tut, there's no kindness in it," returned my cousin. "I do not offer you Dorothy's hand from an unselfish motive. I have told you one motive, but there is another, and a little condition besides, Malcolm." The brandy Sir George had been drinking had sent the devil to his brain.

"What is the condition?" I asked, overjoyed to hear that there was one.

The old man leaned toward me and a fierce blackness overclouded his face. "I am told, Malcolm, that you have few equals in swordsmanship, and that the duello is not new to you. Is it true?"

"I believe I may say it is true," I answered. "I have fought successfully with some of the most noted duellists of—"

"Enough, enough! Now, this is the condition, Malcolm,—a welcome one to you, I am sure; a welcome one to any brave man." His eyes gleamed with fire and hatred. "Quarrel with Rutland and his son and kill both of them."

I felt like recoiling from the old fiend. I had often quarrelled and fought, but, thank God, never in cold blood and with deliberate intent to do murder.

"Then Dorothy and all I possess shall be yours," said Sir George. "The old one will be an easy victim. The young one, they say, prides himself on his prowess. I do not know with what cause, I have never seen him fight. In fact, I have never seen the fellow at all. He has lived at London court since he was a child, and has seldom, if ever, visited this part of the country. He was a page both to Edward VI. and to Queen Mary. Why Elizabeth keeps the damned traitor at court to plot against her is more than I can understand. Do the conditions suit you, Malcolm?" asked Sir George, piercing me with his eyes.

I did not respond, and he continued: "All I ask is your promise to kill Rutland and his son at the first opportunity. I care not how. The marriage may come off at once. It can't take place too soon to please me."

I could not answer for a time. The power to speak and to think had left me. To accept Sir George's offer was out of the question. To refuse it would be to give offence beyond reparation to my only friend, and you know what that would have meant to me. My refuge was Dorothy. I knew, however willing I might be or might appear to be, Dorothy would save me the trouble and danger of refusing her hand. So I said:—

"We have not consulted Dorothy. Perhaps her inclinations—"

"Doll's inclinations be damned. I have always been kind and indulgent to her, and she is a dutiful, obedient daughter. My wish and command in this affair will furnish inclinations enough for Doll."

"But, Sir George," I remonstrated, "I would not accept the hand of Dorothy nor of any woman unless she desired it. I could not. I could not."

"If Doll consents, I am to understand that you accept?" asked Sir George.

I saw no way out of the dilemma, and to gain time I said, "Few men in their right mind would refuse so flattering an offer unless there were a most potent reason, and I—I—"

"Good! good! I shall go to bed happy to-night for the first time in years. The Rutlands will soon be out of my path."

There is a self-acting retribution in our evil passions which never fails to operate. One who hates must suffer, and Sir George for years had paid the penalty night and day, unconscious that his pain was of his own making.

Before we parted I said, "This is a delicate matter, with reference to Dorothy, and I insist that you give me time to win, if possible, her kindly regard before you express to her your wish."

"Nonsense, nonsense, Malcolm! I'll tell the girl about it in the morning, and save you the trouble. The women will want to make some new gowns and—"

"But," I interrupted emphatically, "I will not have it so. It is every man's sweet privilege to woo the woman of his choice in his own way. It is not a trouble to me; it is a pleasure, and it is every woman's right to be wooed by the man who seeks her. I again insist that I only shall speak to Dorothy on this subject. At least, I demand that I be allowed to speak first."

"That's all damned nonsense," responded Sir George; "but if you will have it so, well and good. Take your own course. I suppose it's the fashion at court. The good old country way suits me. A girl's father tells her whom she is to marry, and, by gad, she does it without a word and is glad to get a man. English girls obey their parents. They know what to expect if they don't—the lash, by God and the dungeon under the keep. Your roundabout method is all right for tenants and peasants; but among people who possess estates and who control vast interests, girls are—girls are—Well, they are born and brought up to obey and to help forward the interests of their houses." The old man was growing very drunk, and after a long pause he continued: "Have your own way, Malcolm, but don't waste time. Now that the matter is settled, I want to get it off my hands quickly."

"I shall speak to Dorothy on the subject at the first favorable opportunity," I responded; "but I warn you, Sir George, that if Dorothy proves disinclined to marry me, I will not accept her hand."

"Never fear for Doll; she will be all right," and we parted.

Doll all right! Had he only known how very far from "all right" Dorothy was, he would have slept little that night.

This brings me to the other change of which I spoke—the change in Dorothy. Change? It was a metamorphosis.

A fortnight after the scene at The Peacock I accidentally discovered a drawing made by Dorothy of a man with a cigarro in his mouth. The girl snatched the paper from my hands and blushed convincingly.

"It is a caricature of—of him," she said. She smiled, and evidently was willing to talk upon the subject of "him." I declined the topic.

This happened a month or more previous to my conversation with Sir George concerning Dorothy. A few days after my discovery of the cigarro picture, Dorothy and I were out on the terrace together. Frequently when she was with me she would try to lead the conversation to the topic which I well knew was in her mind, if not in her heart, at all times. She would speak of our first meeting at The Peacock, and would use every artifice to induce me to bring up the subject which she was eager to discuss, but I always failed her. On the day mentioned when we were together on the terrace, after repeated failures to induce me to speak upon the desired topic, she said, "I suppose you never meet—meet—him when you ride out?"

"Whom, Dorothy?" I asked.

"The gentleman with the cigarro," she responded, laughing nervously.

"No," I answered, "I know nothing of him."

The subject was dropped.

At another time she said, "He was in the village—Overhaddon—yesterday."

Then I knew who "him" was.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Jennie Faxton, the farrier's daughter, told me. She often comes to the Hall to serve me. She likes to act as my maid, and is devoted to me."

"Did he send any word to you?" I asked at a venture. The girl blushed and hung her head. "N-o," she responded.

"What was it, Dorothy?" I asked gently. "You may trust me."

"He sent no word to me," the girl responded. "Jennie said she heard two gentlemen talking about me in front of the farrier's shop, and one of them said something about—oh, I don't know what it was. I can't tell you. It was all nonsense, and of course he did not mean it."

"Tell me all, Dorothy," I said, seeing that she really wanted to speak.

"Oh, he said something about having seen Sir George Vernon's daughter at Rowsley, and—and—I can't tell you what he said, I am too full of shame." If her cheeks told the truth, she certainly was "full of shame."

"Tell me all, sweet cousin; I am sorry for you," I said. She raised her eyes to mine in quick surprise with a look of suspicion.

"You may trust me, Dorothy. I say it again, you may trust me."

"He spoke of my beauty and called it marvellous," said the girl. "He said that in all the world there was not another woman—oh, I can't tell you."

"Yes, yes, go on, Dorothy," I insisted.

"He said," she continued, "that he could think of nothing else but me day or night since he had first seen me at Rowsley—that I had bewitched him and—and—Then the other gentleman said, 'John, don't play with fire; it will burn you. Nothing good can come of it for you.'"

"Did Jennie know who the gentleman was?" I asked.

"No," returned Dorothy.

"How do you know who he was?"

"Jennie described him," she said.

"How did she describe him?" I asked.

"She said he was—he was the handsomest man in the world and—and that he affected her so powerfully she fell in love with him in spite of herself. The little devil, to dare! You see that describes him perfectly."

I laughed outright, and the girl blushed painfully.

"It does describe him," she said petulantly. "You know it does. No one can gainsay that he is wonderfully, dangerously handsome. I believe the woman does not live who could refrain from feasting her eyes on his noble beauty. I wonder if I shall ever again—again." Tears were in her voice and almost in her eyes.

"Dorothy! My God, Dorothy!" I exclaimed in terror.

"Yes! yes! My God, Dorothy!" she responded, covering her face with her hands and sighing deeply, as she dropped her head and left me.

Yes, yes, my God, Dorothy! The helpless iron and the terrible loadstone! The passive seed! The dissolving cloud and the falling rain!

Less than a week after the above conversation, Dorothy, Madge, and I were riding from Yulegrave Church up to the village of Overhaddon, which lies one mile across the hills from Haddon Hall. My horse had cast a shoe, and we stopped at Faxton's shop to have him shod. The town well is in the middle of an open space called by the villagers "The Open," around which are clustered the half-dozen houses and shops that constitute the village. The girls were mounted, and I was standing beside them in front of the farrier's, waiting for my horse. Jennie Faxton, a wild, unkempt girl of sixteen, was standing in silent admiration near Dorothy. Our backs were turned toward the well. Suddenly a light came into Jennie's face, and she plucked Dorothy by the skirt of her habit.

"Look, mistress, look! Look there by the well!" said Jennie in a whisper. Dorothy looked toward the well. I also turned my head and beheld my friend, Sir John, holding a bucket of water for his horse to drink. I had not seen him since we parted at The Peacock, and I did not show that I recognized him. I feared to betray our friendship to the villagers. They, however, did not know Sir John, and I need not have been so cautious. But Dorothy and Madge were with me, and of course I dared not make any demonstration of acquaintanceship with the enemy of our house.

Dorothy watched John closely, and when he was ready to mount she struck her horse with the whip, and boldly rode to the well.

"May I ask you to give my mare water?" she said.

"Certainly. Ah, I beg pardon. I did not understand," answered Sir John, confusedly. John, the polished, self-poised courtier, felt the confusion of a country rustic in the presence of this wonderful girl, whose knowledge of life had been acquired within the precincts of Haddon Hall. Yet the inexperienced girl was self-poised and unconfused, while the wits of the courtier, who had often calmly flattered the queen, had all gone wool-gathering.

She repeated her request.

"Certainly," returned John, "I—I knew what you said—but—but you surprise me."

"Yes," said brazen Dorothy, "I have surprised myself."

John, in his haste to satisfy Dolcy's thirst, dashed the water against the skirt of Dorothy's habit, and was profuse in his apologies.

"Do not mention it," said Dorothy. "I like a damp habit. The wind cannot so easily blow it about," and she laughed as she shook the garment to free it of the water. Dolcy refused to drink, and Dorothy having no excuse to linger at the well, drew up her reins and prepared to leave. While doing so, she said:—

"Do you often come to Overhaddon?" Her eager eyes shone like red coals, and looking at John, she awaited smilingly his response.

"Seldom," answered John; "not often. I mean every day—that is, if I may come."

"Any one may come to the village whenever he wishes to do so," responded Dorothy, laughing too plainly at Sir John's confusion. "Is it seldom, or not often, or every day that you come?" In her overconfidence she was chaffing him. He caught the tone, and looked quickly into the girl's eyes. Her gaze could not stand against John's for a moment, and the long lashes drooped to shade her eyes from the fierce light of his.

"I said I would come to Overhaddon every day," he returned; "and although I must have appeared very foolish in my confusion, you cannot misunderstand the full meaning of my words."

In John's boldness and in the ring of his voice Dorothy felt the touch of her master, against whom she well knew all the poor force she could muster would be utterly helpless. She was frightened, and said:—

"I—I must go. Good-by."

When she rode away from him she thought: "I believed because of his confusion that I was the stronger. I could not stand against him for a moment. Holy Virgin! what have I done, and to what am I coming?"

You may now understand the magnitude of the task which Sir George had set for me when he bade me marry his daughter and kill the Rutlands. I might perform the last-named feat, but dragon fighting would be mere child's play compared with the first, while the girl's heart was filled with the image of another man.

I walked forward to meet Dorothy, leaving Madge near the farrier's shop.

"Dorothy, are you mad? What have you been doing?" I asked.

"Could you not see?" she answered, under her breath, casting a look of warning toward Madge and a glance of defiance at me. "Are you, too, blind? Could you not see what I was doing?"

"Yes," I responded.

"Then why do you ask?"

As I went back to Madge I saw John ride out of the village by the south road. I afterward learned that he rode gloomily back to Rutland Castle cursing himself for a fool. His duty to his father, which with him was a strong motive, his family pride, his self love, his sense of caution, all told him that he was walking open-eyed into trouble. He had tried to remain away from the vicinity of Haddon Hall, but, despite his self-respect and self-restraint, he had made several visits to Rowsley and to Overhaddon, and at one time had ridden to Bakewell, passing Haddon Hall on his way thither. He had as much business in the moon as at Overhaddon, yet he told Dorothy he would be at the village every day, and she, it seemed, was only too willing to give him opportunities to transact his momentous affairs.

As the floating cloud to the fathomless blue, as the seed to the earth, as the iron to the lodestone, so was Dorothy unto John.

Thus you see our beautiful pitcher went to the well and was broken.

CHAPTER IV

THE GOLDEN HEART

The day after Dorothy's first meeting with Manners at Overhaddon she was restless and nervous, and about the hour of three in the afternoon she mounted Dolcy and rode toward Bakewell. That direction, I was sure, she took for the purpose of misleading us at the Hall, and I felt confident she would, when once out of sight, head her mare straight for Overhaddon. Within an hour Dorothy was home again, and very ill-tempered.

The next day she rode out in the morning. I asked her if I should ride with her, and the emphatic "No" with which she answered me left no room for doubt in my mind concerning her desire for my company or her destination. Again she returned within an hour and hurried to her apartments. Shortly afterward Madge asked me what Dorothy was weeping about; and although in my own mind I was confident of the cause of Dorothy's tears, I, of course, did not give Madge a hint of my suspicion. Yet I then knew, quite as well as I now know, that John, notwithstanding the important business which he said would bring him to Overhaddon every day, had forced himself to remain at home, and Dorothy, in consequence, suffered from anger and wounded pride. She had twice ridden to Overhaddon to meet him. She had done for his sake that which she knew she should have left undone, and he had refused the offering. A smarting conscience, an aching heart, and a breast full of anger were Dorothy's rewards for her evil doing. The day after her second futile trip to Overhaddon, I, to test her, spoke of John. She turned upon me with the black look of a fury, and hurled her words at me.

"Never again speak his despised name in my hearing. Curse him and his whole race."

"Now what has he been doing?" I asked.

"I tell you, I will not speak of him, nor will I listen to you," and she dashed away from me like a fiery whirlwind.

Four or five days later the girl rode out again upon Dolcy. She was away from home for four long hours, and when she returned she was so gentle, sweet, and happy that she was willing to kiss every one in the household from Welch, the butcher, to Sir George. She was radiant. She clung to Madge and to me, and sang and romped through the house like Dorothy of old.

Madge said, "I am so glad you are feeling better, Dorothy." Then, speaking to me: "She has been ill for several days. She could not sleep."

Dorothy looked quickly over to me, gave a little shrug to her shoulders, bent forward her face, which was red with blushing, and kissed Madge lingeringly upon the lips.

The events of Dorothy's trip I soon learned from her.

The little scene between Dorothy, Madge, and myself, after Dorothy's joyful return, occurred a week before the momentous conversation between Sir George and me concerning my union with his house. Ten days after Sir George had offered me his daughter and his lands, he brought up the subject again. He and I were walking on the ridge of Bowling Green Hill.

"I am glad you are making such fair progress with Doll," said Sir George. "Have you yet spoken to her upon the subject?"

I was surprised to hear that I had made any progress. In fact, I did not know that I had taken a single step. I was curious to learn in what the progress consisted, so I said:—

"I have not spoken to Dorothy yet concerning the marriage, and I fear that I have made no progress at all. She certainly is friendly enough to me, but—"

"I should say that the gift from you she exhibited would indicate considerable progress," said Sir George, casting an expressive glance toward me.

"What gift?" I stupidly inquired.

"The golden heart, you rascal. She said you told her it had belonged to your mother."

"Holy Mother of Truth!" thought I, "pray give your especial care to my cousin Dorothy. She needs it."

Sir George thrust at my side with his thumb and continued:—

"Don't deny it, Malcolm. Damme, you are as shy as a boy in this matter. But perhaps you know better than I how to go at her. I was thinking only the other day that your course was probably the right one. Doll, I suspect, has a dash of her old father's temper, and she may prove a little troublesome unless we let her think she is having her own way. Oh, there is nothing like knowing how to handle them, Malcolm. Just let them think they are having their own way and—and save trouble. Doll may have more of her father in her than I suspect, and perhaps it is well for us to move slowly. You will be able to judge, but you must not move too slowly. If in the end she should prove stubborn, we will break her will or break her neck. I would rather have a daughter in Bakewell churchyard than a wilful, stubborn, disobedient huzzy in Haddon Hall."

Sir George had been drinking, and my slip concerning the gift passed unnoticed by him.

"I am sure you well know how to proceed in this matter, but don't be too cautious, Malcolm; the best woman living loves to be stormed."

"Trust me," I answered, "I shall speak—" and my words unconsciously sank away to thought, as thought often, and inconveniently at times, grows into words.

"Dorothy, Dorothy," said the thoughts again and again, "where came you by the golden heart?" and "where learned you so villanously to lie?"

"From love," was the response, whispered by the sighing winds. "From love, that makes men and women like unto gods and teaches them the tricks of devils." "From love," murmured the dry rustling leaves and the rugged trees. "From love," sighed the fleecy clouds as they floated in the sweet restful azure of the vaulted sky. "From love," cried the mighty sun as he poured his light and heat upon the eager world to give it life. I would not give a fig for a woman, however, who would not lie herself black in the face for the sake of her lover, and I am glad that it is a virtue few women lack. One who would scorn to lie under all other circumstances would—but you understand. I suppose that Dorothy had never before uttered a real lie. She hated all that was evil and loved all that was good till love came a-teaching.

I quickly invented an excuse to leave Sir George, and returned to the Hall to seek Dorothy. I found her and asked her to accompany me for a few minutes that I might speak with her privately. We went out upon the terrace and I at once began:—

"You should tell me when I present you gifts that I may not cause trouble by my ignorance nor show surprise when I suddenly learn what I have done. You see when a man gives a lady a gift and he does not know it, he is apt to—"

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Dorothy, pale with fear and consternation. "Did you—"

"No, I did not betray you, but I came perilously near it."

"I—I wanted to tell you about it. I tried several times to do so—I did so long to tell somebody, but I could not bring myself to speak. I was full of shame, yet I was proud and happy, for all that happened was good and pure and sacred. You are not a woman; you cannot know—"

"But I do know. I know that you saw Manners the other day, and that he gave you a golden heart."

"How did you know? Did any one—"

"Tell me? No. I knew it when you returned after five hours' absence, looking radiant as the sun."

"Oh!" the girl exclaimed, with a startled movement.

"I also knew," I continued, "that at other times when you rode out upon Dolcy you had not seen him."

"How did you know?" she asked, with quick-coming breath.

"By your ill-humor," I answered.

"I knew it was so. I felt that everybody knew all that I had been doing. I could almost see father and Madge and you—even the servants—reading the wickedness written upon my heart. I knew that I could hide it from nobody." Tears were very near the girl's eyes.

"We cannot help thinking that our guilty consciences, through which we see so plainly our own evil, are transparent to all the world. In that fact lies an evil-doer's greatest danger," said I, preacher fashion; "but you need have no fear. What you have done I believe is suspected by no one save me."

A deep sigh of relief rose from the girl's heaving breast.

"Well," she began, "I will tell you all about it, and I am only too glad to do so. It is heavy, Malcolm, heavy on my conscience. But I would not be rid of it for all the kingdoms of the earth."

"A moment since you told me that your conduct was good and pure and sacred, and now you tell me that it is heavy on your conscience. Does one grieve, Dorothy, for the sake of that which is good and pure and sacred?"

"I cannot answer your question," she replied. "I am no priest. But this I know: I have done no evil, and my conscience nevertheless is sore. Solve me the riddle, Malcolm, if you can."

"I cannot solve your riddle, Dorothy," I replied; "but I feel sure it will be far safer for each of us if you will tell me all that happens hereafter."

"I am sure you are right," she responded; "but some secrets are so delicious that we love to suck their sweets alone. I believe, however, your advice is good, and I will tell you all that has happened, though I cannot look you in the face while doing it." She hesitated a moment, and her face was red with tell-tale blushes. She continued, "I have acted most unmaidenly."

"Unmaidenly perhaps, but not unwomanly," said I.

"I thank you," she said, interrupting my sentence. It probably was well that she did so, for I was about to add, "To act womanly often means to get yourself into mischief and your friends into as much trouble as possible." Had I finished my remark, she would not have thanked me.

"Well," said the girl, beginning her laggard narrative, "after we saw—saw him at Overhaddon, you know, I went to the village on each of three days—"

"Yes, I know that also," I said.

"How did you—but never mind. I did not see him, and when I returned home I felt angry and hurt and—and—but never mind that either. One day I found him, and I at once rode to the well where he was standing by his horse. He drew water for Dolcy, but the perverse mare would not drink."

"A characteristic of her sex," I muttered.

"What did you say?" asked the girl.

"Nothing."

She continued: "He seemed constrained and distant in his manner, but I knew, that is, I thought—I mean I felt—oh, you know—he looked as if he were glad to see me and I—I, oh, God! I was so glad and happy to see him that I could hardly restrain myself to act at all maidenly. He must have heard my heart beat. I thought he was in trouble. He seemed to have something he wished to say to me."

"He doubtless had a great deal he wished to say to you," said I, again tempted to futile irony.

"I was sure he had something to say," the girl returned seriously. "He was in trouble. I knew that he was, and I longed to help him."

"What trouble?" I inquired.

"Oh, I don't know. I forgot to ask, but he looked troubled."

"Doubtless he was troubled," I responded. "He had sufficient cause for trouble," I finished the sentence to myself with the words, "in you."

"What was the cause of his trouble?" she hastily asked, turning her face toward me.

"I do not know certainly," I answered in a tone of irony which should have pierced an oak board, while the girl listened and looked at me eagerly; "but I might guess."

"What was it? What was it? Let me hear you guess," she asked.

"You," I responded laconically.

"I!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes, you," I responded with emphasis. "You would bring trouble to any man, but to Sir John Manners—well, if he intends to keep up these meetings with you it would be better for his peace and happiness that he should get him a house in hell, for he would live there more happily than on this earth."

"That is a foolish, senseless remark, Malcolm," the girl replied, tossing her head with a show of anger in her eyes. "This is no time to jest." I suppose I could not have convinced her that I was not jesting.

"At first we did not speak to each other even to say good day, but stood by the well in silence for a very long time. The village people were staring at us, and I felt that every window had a hundred faces in it, and every face a hundred eyes."

"You imagined that," said I, "because of your guilty conscience."

"Perhaps so. But it seemed to me that we stood by the well in silence a very long time. You see, Cousin Malcolm, I was not the one who should speak first. I had done more than my part in going to meet him."

"Decidedly so," said I, interrupting the interesting narrative.

"When I could bear the gaze of the villagers no longer, I drew up my reins and started to leave The Open by the north road. After Dolcy had climbed halfway up North Hill, which as you know overlooks the village, I turned my head and saw Sir John still standing by the well, resting his hand upon his horse's mane. He was watching me. I grew angry, and determined that he should follow me, even if I had to call him. So I drew Dolcy to a stand. Was not that bold in me? But wait, there is worse to come, Malcolm. He did not move, but stood like a statue looking toward me. I knew that he wanted to come, so after a little time I—I beckoned to him and—and then he came like a thunderbolt. Oh! it was delicious. I put Dolcy to a gallop, for when he started toward me I was frightened. Besides I did not want him to overtake me till we were out of the village. But when once he had started, he did not wait. He was as swift now as he had been slow, and my heart throbbed and triumphed because of his eagerness, though in truth I was afraid of him. Dolcy, you know, is very fleet, and when I touched her with the whip she soon put half a mile between me and the village. Then I brought her to a walk and—and he quickly overtook me.

"When he came up to me he said: 'I feared to follow you, though I ardently wished to do so. I dreaded to tell you my name lest you should hate me. Sir Malcolm at The Peacock said he would not disclose to you my identity. I am John Manners. Our fathers are enemies.'

"Then I said to him, 'That is the reason I wish to talk to you. I wished you to come to meet me because I wanted to tell you that I regret and deplore the feud between our fathers.'—'Ah, you wished me to come?' he asked.—'Of course I did,' I answered, 'else why should I be here?'—'No one regrets the feud between our houses so deeply as I,' replied Sir John. 'I can think of nothing else by day, nor can I dream of anything else by night. It is the greatest cause for grief and sorrow that has ever come into my life.' You see, Cousin Malcolm," the girl continued, "I was right. His father's conduct does trouble him. Isn't he noble and broad-minded to see the evil of his father's ways?"

I did not tell the girl that Sir John's regret for the feud between the houses of Manners and Vernon grew out of the fact that it separated him from her; nor did I tell her that he did not grieve over his "father's ways."

I asked, "Did Sir John tell you that he grieved because of his father's ill-doing?"

"N-o, not in set terms, but—that, of course, would have been very hard for him to say. I told you what he said, and there could be no other meaning to his words."

"Of course not," I responded.

"No, and I fairly longed to reach out my hand and clutch him, because—because I was so sorry for him."

"Was sorrow your only feeling?" I asked.

The girl looked at me for a moment, and her eyes filled with tears. Then she sobbed gently and said, "Oh, Cousin Malcolm, you are so old and so wise." ("Thank you," thought I, "a second Daniel come to judgment at thirty-five; or Solomon and Methuselah in one.") She continued: "Tell me, tell me, what is this terrible thing that has come upon me. I seem to be living in a dream. I am burning with a fever, and a heavy weight is here upon my breast. I cannot sleep at night. I can do nothing but long and yearn for—for I know not what—till at times it seems that some frightful, unseen monster is slowly drawing the heart out of my bosom. I think of—of him at all times, and I try to recall his face, and the tones of his voice until, Cousin Malcolm, I tell you I am almost mad. I call upon the Holy Virgin hour by hour to pity me; but she is pure, and cannot know what I feel. I hate and loathe myself. To what am I coming? Where will it all end? Yet I can do nothing to save myself. I am powerless against this terrible feeling. I cannot even resolve to resist it. It came upon me mildly that day at The Peacock Inn, when I first saw him, and it grows deeper and stronger day by day, and, alas! night by night. I seem to have lost myself. In some strange way I feel as if I had sunk into him—that he had absorbed me."

"The iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain," thought I.

"I believed," continued the girl, "that if he would exert his will I might have relief; but there again I find trouble, for I cannot bring myself to ask him to will it. The feeling within me is like a sore heart: painful as it is, I must keep it. Without it I fear I could not live."

After this outburst there was a long pause during which she walked by my side, seemingly unconscious that I was near her. I had known for some time that Dorothy was interested in Manners; but I was not prepared to see such a volcano of passion. I need not descant upon the evils and dangers of the situation. The thought that first came to me was that Sir George would surely kill his daughter before he would allow her to marry a son of Rutland. I was revolving in my mind how I should set about to mend the matter when Dorothy again spoke.

"Tell me, Cousin Malcolm, can a man throw a spell over a woman and bewitch her?"

"I do not know. I have never heard of a man witch," I responded.

"No?" asked the girl.

"But," I continued, "I do know that a woman may bewitch a man. John Manners, I doubt not, could also testify knowingly on the subject by this time."

"Oh, do you think he is bewitched?" cried Dorothy, grasping my arm and looking eagerly into my face. "If I could bewitch him, I would do it. I would deal with the devil gladly to learn the art. I would not care for my soul. I do not fear the future. The present is a thousand-fold dearer to me than either the past or the future. I care not what comes hereafter. I want him now. Ah, Malcolm, pity my shame."

She covered her face with her hands, and after a moment continued: "I am not myself. I belong not to myself. But if I knew that he also suffers, I do believe my pain would be less."

"I think you may set your heart at rest upon that point," I answered. "He, doubtless, also suffers."

"I hope so," she responded, unconscious of the selfish wish she had expressed. "If he does not, I know not what will be my fate."

I saw that I had made a mistake in assuring her that John also suffered, and I determined to correct it later on, if possible.

Dorothy was silent, and I said, "You have not told me about the golden heart."

"I will tell you," she answered. "We rode for two hours or more, and talked of the weather and the scenery, until there was nothing more to be said concerning either. Then Sir John told me of the court in London, where he has always lived, and of the queen whose hair, he says, is red, but not at all like mine. I wondered if he would speak of the beauty of my hair, but he did not. He only looked at it. Then he told me about the Scottish queen whom he once met when he was on an embassy to Edinburgh. He described her marvellous beauty, and I believe he sympathizes with her cause—that is, with her cause in Scotland. He says she has no good cause in England. He is true to our queen. Well—well he talked so interestingly that I could have listened a whole month—yes, all my life."

"I suppose you could," I said.

"Yes," she continued, "but I could not remain longer from home, and when I left him he asked me to accept a keepsake which had belonged to his mother, as a token that there should be no feud between him and me." And she drew from her bosom a golden heart studded with diamonds and pierced by a white silver arrow.

"I, of course, accepted it, then we said 'good-by,' and I put Dolcy to a gallop that she might speedily take me out of temptation."

"Have you ridden to Overhaddon for the purpose of seeing Manners many times since he gave you the heart?" I queried.

"What would you call 'many times'?" she asked, drooping her head.

"Every day?" I said interrogatively. She nodded. "Yes. But I have seen him only once since the day when he gave me the heart."

Nothing I could say would do justice to the subject, so I remained silent.

"But you have not yet told me how your father came to know of the golden heart," I said.

"It was this way: One morning while I was looking at the heart, father came upon me suddenly before I could conceal it. He asked me to tell him how I came by the jewel, and in my fright and confusion I could think of nothing else to say, so I told him you had given it to me. He promised not to speak to you about the heart, but he did not keep his word. He seemed pleased."

"Doubtless he was pleased," said I, hoping to lead up to the subject so near to Sir George's heart, but now farther than ever from mine.

The girl unsuspectingly helped me.

"Father asked if you had spoken upon a subject of great interest to him and to yourself, and I told him you had not. 'When he does speak,' said father most kindly, 'I want you to grant his request'—and I will grant it, Cousin Malcolm." She looked in my face and continued: "I will grant your request, whatever it may be. You are the dearest friend I have in the world, and mine is the most loving and lovable father that girl ever had. It almost breaks my heart when I think of his suffering should he learn of what I have done—that which I just told to you." She walked beside me meditatively for a moment and said, "To-morrow I will return Sir John's gift and I will never see him again."

I felt sure that by to-morrow she would have repented of her repentance; but I soon discovered that I had given her much more time than she needed to perform that trifling feminine gymnastic, for with the next breath she said:—

"I have no means of returning the heart. I must see him once more and I will give—give it—it—back to—to him, and will tell him that I can see him never again." She scarcely had sufficient resolution to finish telling her intention. Whence, then, would come the will to put it in action? Forty thieves could not have stolen the heart from her, though she thought she was honest when she said she would take it to him.

"Dorothy," said I, seriously but kindly, "have you and Sir John spoken of—"

She evidently knew that I meant to say "of love," for she interrupted me.

"N-o, but surely he knows. And I—I think—at least I hope with all my heart that—"

"I will take the heart to Sir John," said I, interrupting her angrily, "and you need not see him again. He has acted like a fool and a knave. He is a villain, Dorothy, and I will tell him as much in the most emphatic terms I have at my command."

"Dare you speak against him or to him upon the subject!" she exclaimed, her eyes blazing with anger; "you—you asked for my confidence and I gave it. You said I might trust you and I did so, and now you show me that I am a fool indeed. Traitor!"

"My dear cousin," said I, seeing that she spoke the truth in charging me with bad faith, "your secret is safe with me. I swear it by my knighthood. You may trust me. I spoke in anger. But Sir John has acted badly. That you cannot gainsay. You, too, have done great evil. That also you cannot gainsay."

"No," said the girl, dejectedly, "I cannot deny it; but the greatest evil is yet to come."

"You must do something," I continued. "You must take some decisive step that will break this connection, and you must take the step at once if you would save yourself from the frightful evil that is in store for you. Forgive me for what I said, sweet cousin. My angry words sprang from my love for you and my fear for your future."

No girl's heart was more tender to the influence of kindness than Dorothy's. No heart was more obdurate to unkindness or peremptory command.

My words softened her at once, and she tried to smother the anger I had aroused. But she did not entirely succeed, and a spark remained which in a moment or two created a disastrous conflagration. You shall hear.

She walked by my side in silence for a little time, and then spoke in a low, slightly sullen tone which told of her effort to smother her resentment.

"I do trust you, Cousin Malcolm. What is it that you wish to ask of me? Your request is granted before it is made."

"Do not be too sure of that, Dorothy," I replied. "It is a request your father ardently desires me to make, and I do not know how to speak to you concerning the subject in the way I wish."

I could not ask her to marry me, and tell her with the same breath that I did not want her for my wife. I felt I must wait for a further opportunity to say that I spoke only because her father had required me to do so, and that circumstances forced me to put the burden of refusal upon her. I well knew that she would refuse me, and then I intended to explain.

"Why, what is it all about?" asked the girl in surprise, suspecting, I believe, what was to follow.

"It is this: your father is anxious that his vast estates shall not pass out of the family name, and he wishes you to be my wife, so that your children may bear the loved name of Vernon."

I could not have chosen a more inauspicious time to speak. She looked at me for an instant in surprise, turning to scorn. Then she spoke in tones of withering contempt.

"Tell my father that I shall never bear a child by the name of Vernon. I would rather go barren to my grave. Ah! that is why Sir John Manners is a villain? That is why a decisive step should be taken? That is why you come to my father's house a-fortune-hunting? After you have squandered your patrimony and have spent a dissolute youth in profligacy, after the women of the class you have known will have no more of you but choose younger men, you who are old enough to be my father come here and seek your fortune, as your father sought his, by marriage. I do not believe that my father wishes me to—to marry you. You have wheedled him into giving his consent when he was in his cups. But even if he wished it with all his heart, I would not marry you." Then she turned and walked rapidly toward the Hall.

Her fierce words angered me; for in the light of my real intentions her scorn was uncalled for, and her language was insulting beyond endurance. For a moment or two the hot blood rushed to my brain and rendered me incapable of intelligent thought. But as Dorothy walked from me I realized that something must be done at once to put myself right with her. When my fit of temper had cooled, and when I considered that the girl did not know my real intentions, I could not help acknowledging that in view of all that had just passed between us concerning Sir John Manners, and, in fact, in view of all that she had seen and could see, her anger was justifiable.

I called to her: "Dorothy, wait a moment. You have not heard all I have to say."

She hastened her pace. A few rapid strides brought me to her side. I was provoked, not at her words, for they were almost justifiable, but because she would not stop to hear me. I grasped her rudely by the arm and said:—

"Listen till I have finished."

"I will not," she answered viciously. "Do not touch me."

I still held her by the arm and said: "I do not wish to marry you. I spoke only because your father desired me to do so, and because my refusal to speak would have offended him beyond any power of mine to make amends. I could not tell you that I did not wish you for my wife until you had given me an opportunity. I was forced to throw the burden of refusal upon you."

"That is but a ruse—a transparent, flimsy ruse," responded the stubborn, angry girl, endeavoring to draw her arm from my grasp.

"It is not a ruse," I answered. "If you will listen to me and will help me by acting as I suggest, we may between us bring your father to our way of thinking, and I may still be able to retain his friendship."

"What is your great plan?" asked Dorothy, in a voice such as one might expect to hear from a piece of ice.

"I have formed no plan as yet," I replied, "although I have thought of several. Until we can determine upon one, I suggest that you permit me to say to your father that I have asked you to be my wife, and that the subject has come upon you so suddenly that you wish a short time,—a fortnight or a month—in which to consider your answer."

"That is but a ruse, I say, to gain time," she answered contemptuously. "I do not wish one moment in which to consider. You already have my answer. I should think you had had enough. Do you desire more of the same sort? A little of such treatment should go a long way with a man possessed of one spark of honor or self-respect."

Her language would have angered a sheep.

"If you will not listen to me," I answered, thoroughly aroused and careless of consequences, "go to your father. Tell him I asked you to be my wife, and that you scorned my suit. Then take the consequences. He has always been gentle and tender to you because there has been no conflict. Cross his desires, and you will learn a fact of which you have never dreamed. You have seen the manner in which he treats others who oppose him. You will learn that with you, too, he can be one of the cruelest and most violent of men."

"You slander my father. I will go to him as you advise and will tell him that I would not marry you if you wore the English crown. I, myself, will tell him of my meeting with Sir John Manners rather than allow you the pleasure of doing so. He will be angry, but he will pity me."

"For God's sake, Dorothy, do not tell your father of your meetings at Overhaddon. He would kill you. Have you lived in the same house with him all these years and do you not better know his character than to think that you may go to him with the tale you have just told me, and that he will forgive you? Feel as you will toward me, but believe me when I swear to you by my knighthood that I will betray to no person what you have this day divulged to me."

Dorothy made no reply, but turned from me and rapidly walked toward the Hall. I followed at a short distance, and all my anger was displaced by fear for her. When we reached the Hall she quickly sought her father and approached him in her old free manner, full of confidence in her influence over him.

"Father, this man"—waving her hand toward me—"has come to Haddon Hall a-fortune-hunting. He has asked me to be his wife, and says you wish me to accept him."

"Yes, Doll, I certainly wish it with all my heart," returned Sir George, affectionately, taking his daughter's hand.

"Then you need wish it no longer, for I will not marry him."

"What?" demanded her father, springing to his feet.

"I will not. I will not. I will not."

"You will if I command you to do so, you damned insolent wench," answered Sir George, hoarsely. Dorothy's eyes opened in wonder.

"Do not deceive yourself, father, for one moment," she retorted contemptuously. "He has come here in sheep's clothing and has adroitly laid his plans to convince you that I should marry him, but—"

"He has done nothing of the sort," answered Sir George, growing more angry every moment, but endeavoring to be calm. "Nothing of the sort. Many years ago I spoke to him on this subject, which is very dear to my heart. The project has been dear to me ever since you were a child. When I again broached it to Malcolm a fortnight or more since I feared from his manner that he was averse to the scheme. I had tried several times to speak to him about it, but he warded me off, and when I did speak, I feared that he was not inclined to it."

"Yes," interrupted the headstrong girl, apparently bent upon destroying both of us. "He pretended that he did not wish to marry me. He said he wished me to give a sham consent for the purpose of gaining time till we might hit upon some plan by which we could change your mind. He said he had no desire nor intention to marry me. It was but a poor, lame ruse on his part."

During Dorothy's recital Sir George turned his face from her to me. When she had finished speaking, he looked at me for a moment and said:—

"Does my daughter speak the truth? Did you say—"

"Yes," I promptly replied, "I have no intention of marrying your daughter." Then hoping to place myself before Sir George in a better light, I continued: "I could not accept the hand of a lady against her will. I told you as much when we conversed on the subject."

"What?" exclaimed Sir George, furious with anger. "You too? You whom I have befriended?"

"I told you, Sir George, I would not marry Dorothy without her free consent. No gentleman of honor would accept the enforced compliance of a woman."

"But Doll says that you told her you had no intention of marrying her even should she consent," replied Sir George.

"I don't know that I spoke those exact words," I replied, "but you may consider them said."

"You damned, ungrateful, treacherous hound!" stormed Sir George. "You listened to me when I offered you my daughter's hand, and you pretended to consent without at the time having any intention of doing so."

"That, I suppose, is true, Sir George," said I, making a masterful effort against anger. "That is true, for I knew that Dorothy would not consent; and had I been inclined to the marriage, I repeat, I would marry no woman against her will. No gentleman would do it."

My remark threw Sir George into a paroxysm of rage.

"I did it, you cur, you dog, you—you traitorous, ungrateful—I did it."

"Then, Sir George," said I, interrupting him, for I was no longer able to restrain my anger, "you were a cowardly poltroon."

"This to me in my house!" he cried, grasping a chair with which to strike me. Dorothy came between us.

"Yes," said I, "and as much more as you wish to hear." I stood my ground, and Sir George put down the chair.

"Leave my house at once," he said in a whisper of rage.

"If you are on my premises in one hour from now I will have you flogged from my door by the butcher."

"What have I done?" cried Dorothy. "What have I done?"

"Your regrets come late, Mistress Vernon," said I.

"She shall have more to regret," said Sir George, sullenly. "Go to your room, you brazen, disobedient huzzy, and if you leave it without my permission, by God, I will have you whipped till you bleed. I will teach you to say 'I won't' when I say 'you shall.' God curse my soul, if I don't make you repent this day!"

As I left the room Dorothy was in tears, and Sir George was walking the floor in a towering rage. The girl had learned that I was right in what I had told her concerning her father's violent temper.

I went at once to my room in Eagle Tower and collected my few belongings in a bundle. Pitifully small it was, I tell you.

Where I should go I knew not, and where I should remain I knew even less, for my purse held only a few shillings—the remnant of the money Queen Mary had sent to me by the hand of Sir Thomas Douglas. England was as unsafe for me as Scotland; but how I might travel to France without money, and how I might without a pass evade Elizabeth's officers who guarded every English port, even were I supplied with gold, were problems for which I had no solution.

There were but two persons in Haddon Hall to whom I cared to say farewell. They were Lady Madge and Will Dawson. The latter was a Scot, and was attached to the cause of Queen Mary. He and I had become friends, and on several occasions we had talked confidentially over Mary's sad plight.

When my bundle was packed, I sought Madge and found her in the gallery near the foot of the great staircase. She knew my step and rose to greet me with a bright smile.

"I have come to say good-by to you, Cousin Madge," said I. The smile vanished from her face.

"You are not going to leave Haddon Hall?" she asked.

"Yes, and forever," I responded. "Sir George has ordered me to go."

"No, no," she exclaimed. "I cannot believe it. I supposed that you and my uncle were friends. What has happened? Tell me if you can—if you wish. Let me touch your hand," and as she held out her hands, I gladly grasped them.

I have never seen anything more beautiful than Madge Stanley's hands. They were not small, but their shape, from the fair, round forearm and wrist to the ends of the fingers was worthy of a sculptor's dream. Beyond their physical beauty there was an expression in them which would have belonged to her eyes had she possessed the sense of sight. The flood of her vital energy had for so many years been directed toward her hands as a substitute for her lost eyesight that their sensitiveness showed itself not only in an infinite variety of delicate gestures and movements, changing with her changing moods, but they had an expression of their own, such as we look for in the eyes. I had gazed upon her hands so often, and had studied so carefully their varying expression, discernible both to my sight and to my touch, that I could read her mind through them as we read the emotions of others through the countenance. The "feel" of her hands, if I may use the word, I can in no way describe. Its effect on me was magical. The happiest moments I have ever known were those when I held the fair blind girl by the hand and strolled upon the great terrace or followed the babbling winding course of dear old Wye, and drank in the elixir of all that is good and pure from the cup of her sweet, unconscious influence.

Madge, too, had found happiness in our strolling. She had also found health and strength, and, marvellous to say, there had come to her a slight improvement in vision. She had always been able to distinguish sunlight from darkness, but with renewed strength had come the power dimly to discern dark objects in a strong light, and even that small change for the better had brought unspeakable gladness to her heart. She said she owed it all to me. A faint pink had spread itself in her cheeks and a plumpness had been imparted to her form which gave to her ethereal beauty a touch of the material. Nor was this to be regretted, for no man can adequately make love to a woman who has too much of the angel in her. You must not think, however, that I had been making love to Madge. On the contrary, I again say, the thought had never entered my mind. Neither at that time had I even suspected that she would listen to me upon the great theme. I had in my self-analysis assigned many reasons other than love for my tenderness toward her; but when I was about to depart, and she impulsively gave me her hands, I, believing that I was grasping them for the last time, felt the conviction come upon me that she was dearer to me than all else in life.

"Do you want to tell me why my uncle has driven you from Haddon?" she asked.

"He wished me to ask Dorothy to be my wife," I returned.

"And you?" she queried.

"I did so."

Instantly the girl withdrew her hands from mine and stepped back from me. Then I had another revelation. I knew what she meant and felt. Her hands told me all, even had there been no expression in her movement and in her face.

"Dorothy refused," I continued, "and her father desired to force her into compliance. I would not be a party to the transaction, and Sir George ordered me to leave his house."

After a moment of painful silence Madge said:—"I do not wonder that you should wish to marry Dorothy. She—she must be very beautiful."

"I do not wish to marry Dorothy," said I. I heard a slight noise back of me, but gave it no heed. "And I should not have married her had she consented. I knew that Dorothy would refuse me, therefore I promised Sir George that I would ask her to be my wife. Sir George had always been my friend, and should I refuse to comply with his wishes, I well knew he would be my enemy. He is bitterly angry against me now; but when he becomes calm, he will see wherein he has wronged me. I asked Dorothy to help me, but she would not listen to my plan."

"—and now she begs your forgiveness," cried Dorothy, as she ran weeping to me, and took my hand most humbly.

"Dorothy! Dorothy!" I exclaimed.

"What frightful evil have I brought upon you?" said she. "Where can you go? What will you do?"

"I know not," I answered. "I shall probably go to the Tower of London when Queen Elizabeth's officers learn of my quarrel with Sir George. But I will try to escape to France."

"Have you money?" asked Madge, tightly holding one of my hands.

"A small sum," I answered.

"How much have you? Tell me. Tell me how much have you," insisted Madge, clinging to my hand and speaking with a force that would brook no refusal.

"A very little sum, I am sorry to say; only a few shillings," I responded.

She quickly withdrew her hand from mine and began to remove the baubles from her ears and the brooch from her throat. Then she nervously stripped the rings from her fingers and held out the little handful of jewels toward me, groping for my hands.

"Take these, Malcolm. Take these, and wait here till I return." She turned toward the staircase, but in her confusion she missed it, and before I could reach her, she struck against the great newel post.

"God pity me," she said, as I took her hand. "I wish I were dead. Please lead me to the staircase, Cousin Malcolm. Thank you."

She was weeping gently when she started up the steps, and I knew that she was going to fetch me her little treasure of gold.

Madge held up the skirt of her gown with one hand while she grasped the banister with the other. She was halfway up when Dorothy, whose generous impulses needed only to be prompted, ran nimbly and was about to pass her on the staircase when Madge grasped her gown.

"Please don't, Dorothy. Please do not. I beg you, do not forestall me. Let me do this. Let me. You have all else to make you happy. Don't take this from me only because you can see and can walk faster than I."

Dorothy did not stop, but hurried past her. Madge sank upon the steps and covered her face with her hands. Then she came gropingly back to me just as Dorothy returned.

"Take these, Cousin Malcolm," cried Dorothy. "Here are a few stones of great value. They belonged to my mother."

Madge was sitting dejectedly upon the lowest step of the staircase. Dorothy held her jewel-box toward me, and in the midst of the diamonds and gold I saw the heart John Manners had given her. I did not take the box.

"Do you offer me this, too—even this?" I said, lifting the heart from the box by its chain.—"Yes, yes," cried Dorothy, "even that, gladly, gladly." I replaced it in the box.

Then spoke Madge, while she tried to check the falling tears:—"Dorothy, you are a cruel, selfish girl."

"Oh, Madge," cried Dorothy, stepping to her side and taking her hand. "How can you speak so unkindly to me?"

"You have everything good," interrupted Madge. "You have beauty, wealth, eyesight, and yet you would not leave to me the joy of helping him. I could not see, and you hurried past me that you might be first to give him the help of which I was the first to think."

Dorothy was surprised at the outburst from Madge, and kneeled by her side.

"We may both help Cousin Malcolm," she said.

"No, no," responded Madge, angrily. "Your jewels are more than enough. He would have no need of my poor offering."

I took Madge's hand and said, "I shall accept help from no one but you, Madge; from no one but you."

"I will go to our rooms for your box," said Dorothy, who had begun to see the trouble. "I will fetch it for you."

"No, I will fetch it," answered Madge. She arose, and I led her to the foot of the staircase. When she returned she held in her hands a purse and a little box of jewels. These she offered to me, but I took only the purse, saying: "I accept the purse. It contains more money than I shall need. From its weight I should say there are twenty gold pounds sterling."

"Twenty-five," answered Madge. "I have saved them, believing that the time might come when they would be of great use to me. I did not know the joy I was saving for myself."

Tears came to my eyes, and Dorothy wept silently.

"Will you not take the jewels also?" asked Madge.

"No," I responded; "the purse will more than pay my expenses to France, where I have wealthy relatives. There I may have my mother's estate for the asking, and I can repay you the gold. I can never repay your kindness."

"I hope you will never offer to repay the gold," said Madge.

"I will not," I gladly answered.

"As to the kindness," she said, "you have paid me in advance for that many, many times over."

I then said farewell, promising to send letters telling of my fortune. As I was leaving I bent forward and kissed Madge upon the forehead, while she gently pressed my hand, but did not speak a word.

"Cousin Malcolm," said Dorothy, who held my other hand, "you are a strong, gentle, noble man, and I want you to say that you forgive me."

"I do forgive you, Dorothy, from my heart. I could not blame you if I wished to do so, for you did not know what you were doing."

"Not to know is sometimes the greatest of sins," answered Dorothy. I bent forward to kiss her cheek in token of my full forgiveness, but she gave me her lips and said: "I shall never again be guilty of not knowing that you are good and true and noble, Cousin Malcolm, and I shall never again doubt your wisdom or your good faith when you speak to me." She did doubt me afterward, but I fear her doubt was with good cause. I shall tell you of it in the proper place.

Then I forced myself to leave my fair friends and went to the gateway under Eagle Tower, where I found Will Dawson waiting for me with my horse.

"Sir George ordered me to bring your horse," said Will. "He seemed much excited. Has anything disagreeable happened? Are you leaving us? I see you wear your steel cap and breastplate and are carrying your bundle."

"Yes, Will, your master has quarrelled with me and I must leave his house."

"But where do you go, Sir Malcolm? You remember that of which we talked? In England no place but Haddon Hall will be safe for you, and the ports are so closely guarded that you will certainly be arrested if you try to sail for France."

"I know all that only too well, Will. But I must go, and I will try to escape to France. If you wish to communicate with me, I may be found by addressing a letter in care of the Duc de Guise."

"If I can ever be of help to you," said Will, "personally, or in that other matter, Queen Mary, you understand,—you have only to call on me."

"I thank you, Will," I returned, "I shall probably accept your kind offer sooner than you anticipate. Do you know Jennie Faxton, the ferrier's daughter?"

"I do," he responded.

"I believe she may be trusted," I said.

"Indeed, I believe she is true as any steel in her father's shop," Will responded.

"Good-by, Will, you may hear from me soon."

I mounted and rode back of the terrace, taking my way along the Wye toward Rowsley. When I turned and looked back, I saw Dorothy standing upon the terrace. By her side, dressed in white, stood Madge. Her hand was covering her eyes. A step or two below them on the terrace staircase stood Will Dawson. They were three stanch friends, although one of them had brought my troubles upon me. After all, I was leaving Haddon Hall well garrisoned. My heart also was well garrisoned with a faithful troop of pain. But I shall write no more of that time. It was too full of bitterness.

CHAPTER V

MINE ENEMY'S ROOF-TREE

I rode down the Wye to Rowsley, and by the will of my horse rather than by any intention of my own took the road up through Lathkil Dale. I had determined if possible to reach the city of Chester, and thence to ride down into Wales, hoping to find on the rough Welsh coast a fishing boat or a smuggler's craft that would carry me to France. In truth, I cared little whether I went to the Tower or to France, since in either case I felt that I had looked my last upon Haddon Hall, and had spoken farewell to the only person in all the world for whom I really cared. My ride from Haddon gave me time for deliberate thought, and I fully agreed with myself upon two propositions. First, I became thoroughly conscious of my real feeling toward Madge, and secondly, I was convinced that her kindness and her peculiar attitude toward me when I parted from her were but the promptings of a tender heart stirred by pity for my unfortunate situation, rather than what I thought when I said farewell to her. The sweet Wye and the beautiful Lathkil whispered to me as I rode beside their banks, but in their murmurings I heard only the music of her voice. The sun shone brightly, but its blessed light only served to remind me of the beautiful girl whom I had left in darkness. The light were worthless to me if I could not share it with her. What a mooning lout was I!

All my life I had been a philosopher, and as I rode from Haddon, beneath all my gloominess there ran a current of amusement which brought to my lips an ill-formed, half-born laugh when I thought of the plight and condition in which I, by candid self-communion, found myself. Five years before that time I had left France, and had cast behind me all the fair possibilities for noble achievement which were offered to me in that land, that I might follow the fortunes of a woman whom I thought I loved. Before my exile from her side I had begun to fear that my idol was but a thing of stone; and now that I had learned to know myself, and to see her as she really was, I realized that I had been worshipping naught but clay for lo, these many years. There was only this consolation in the thought for me: every man at some time in his life is a fool—made such by a woman. It is given to but few men to have for their fool-maker the rightful queen of three kingdoms. All that was left to me of my life of devotion was a shame-faced pride in the quality of my fool-maker. "Then," thought I, "I have at last turned to be my own fool-maker." But I suppose it had been written in the book of fate that I should ride from Haddon a lovelorn youth of thirty-five, and I certainly was fulfilling my destiny to the letter.

I continued to ride up the Lathkil until I came to a fork in the road. One branch led to the northwest, the other toward the southwest. I was at a loss which direction to take, and I left the choice to my horse, in whose wisdom and judgement I had more confidence than in my own. My horse, refusing the responsibility, stopped. So there we stood like an equestrian statue arguing with itself until I saw a horseman riding toward me from the direction of Overhaddon. When he approached I recognized Sir John Manners. He looked as woebegone as I felt, and I could not help laughing at the pair of us, for I knew that his trouble was akin to mine. The pain of love is ludicrous to all save those who feel it. Even to them it is laughable in others. A love-full heart has no room for that sort of charity which pities for kinship's sake.

"What is the trouble with you, Sir John, that you look so downcast?" said I, offering my hand.

"Ah," he answered, forcing a poor look of cheerfulness into his face, "Sir Malcolm, I am glad to see you. Do I look downcast?"

"As forlorn as a lover who has missed seeing his sweetheart," I responded, guessing the cause of Sir John's despondency.

"I have no sweetheart, therefore missing her could not have made me downcast," he replied.

"So you really did miss her?" I queried. "She was detained at Haddon Hall, Sir John, to bid me farewell."

"I do not understand—" began Sir John, growing cold in his bearing.

"I understand quite well," I answered. "Dorothy told me all to-day. You need keep nothing from me. The golden heart brought her into trouble, and made mischief for me of which I cannot see the end. I will tell you the story while we ride. I am seeking my way to Chester, that I may, if possible, sail for France. This fork in the road has brought me to a standstill, and my horse refuses to decide which route we shall take. Perhaps you will direct us."

"Gladly. The road to the southwest—the one I shall take—is the most direct route to Chester. But tell me, how comes it that you are leaving Haddon Hall? I thought you had gone there to marry-" He stopped speaking, and a smile stole into his eyes.

"Let us ride forward together, and I will tell you about it," said I.

While we travelled I told Sir John the circumstances of my departure from Haddon Hall, concealing nothing save that which touched Madge Stanley. I then spoke of my dangerous position in England, and told him of my great desire to reach my mother's people in France.

"You will find difficulty and danger in escaping to France at this time," said Sir John, "the guard at the ports is very strong and strict, and your greatest risk will be at the moment when you try to embark without a passport."

"That is true," I responded; "but I know of nothing else that I can do."

"Come with me to Rutland Castle," said Sir John. "You may there find refuge until such time as you can go to France. I will gladly furnish you money which you may repay at your pleasure, and I may soon be able to procure a passport for you."

I thanked him, but said I did not see my way clear to accept his kind offer.

"You are unknown in the neighborhood of Rutland," he continued, "and you may easily remain incognito." Although his offer was greatly to my liking, I suggested several objections, chief among which was the distaste Lord Rutland might feel toward one of my name. I would not, of course, consent that my identity should be concealed from him. But to be brief—an almost impossible achievement for me, it seems—Sir John assured me of his father's welcome, and it was arranged between us that I should take my baptismal name, François de Lorraine, and passing for a French gentleman on a visit to England, should go to Rutland with my friend. So it happened through the strange workings of fate that I found help and refuge under my enemy's roof-tree.

Kind old Lord Rutland welcomed me, as his son had foretold, and I was convinced ere I had passed an hour under his roof that the feud between him and Sir George was of the latter's brewing.

The happenings in Haddon Hall while I lived at Rutland I knew, of course, only by the mouth of others; but for convenience in telling I shall speak of them as if I had seen and heard all that took place. I may now say once for all that I shall take that liberty throughout this entire history.

On the morning of the day after my departure from Haddon, Jennie Faxton went to visit Dorothy and gave her a piece of information, small in itself, but large in its effect upon that ardent young lady. Will Fletcher, the arrow-maker at Overhaddon, had observed Dorothy's movements in connection with Manners; and although Fletcher did not know who Sir John was, that fact added to his curiosity and righteous indignation.

"It do be right that some one should tell the King of the Peak as how his daughter is carrying on with a young man who does come here every day or two to meet her, and I do intend to tell Sir George if she put not a stop to it," said Fletcher to some of his gossips in Yulegrave churchyard one Sunday afternoon.

Dorothy notified John, Jennie being the messenger, of Will's observations, visual and verbal, and designated another place for meeting,—the gate east of Bowling Green Hill. This gate was part of a wall on the east side of the Haddon estates adjoining the lands of the house of Devonshire which lay to the eastward. It was a secluded spot in the heart of the forest half a mile distant from Haddon Hall.

Sir George, for a fortnight or more after my disappearance, enforced his decree of imprisonment against Dorothy, and she, being unable to leave the Hall, could not go to Bowling Green Gate to meet Sir John. Before I had learned of the new trysting-place John had ridden thither several evenings to meet Dorothy, but had found only Jennie bearing her mistress's excuses. I supposed his journeyings had been to Overhaddon; but I did not press his confidence, nor did he give it.

Sir George's treatment of Dorothy had taught her that the citadel of her father's wrath could be stormed only by gentleness, and an opportunity was soon presented in which she used that effective engine of feminine warfare to her great advantage.

As I have told you, Sir George was very rich. No man, either noble or gentle, in Derbyshire or in any of the adjoining counties, possessed so great an estate or so beautiful a hall as did he. In France we would have called Haddon Hall a grand château.

Sir George's deceased wife had been a sister to the Earl of Derby, who lived at the time of which I am now writing. The earl had a son, James, who was heir to the title and to the estates of his father. The son was a dissipated, rustic clown—almost a simpleton. He had the vulgarity of a stable boy and the vices of a courtier. His associates were chosen from the ranks of gamesters, ruffians, and tavern maids. Still, he was a scion of one of the greatest families of England's nobility.

After Sir George's trouble with Dorothy, growing out of his desire that I should wed her, the King of the Peak had begun to feel that in his beautiful daughter he had upon his hands a commodity that might at any time cause him trouble. He therefore determined to marry her to some eligible gentleman as quickly as possible, and to place the heavy responsibility of managing her in the hands of a husband. The stubborn violence of Sir George's nature, the rough side of which had never before been shown to Dorothy, in her became adroit wilfulness of a quality that no masculine mind may compass. But her life had been so entirely undisturbed by opposing influences that her father, firm in the belief that no one in his household would dare to thwart his will, had remained in dangerous ignorance of the latent trouble which pervaded his daughter from the soles of her shapely feet to the top of her glory-crowned head.

Sir George, in casting about for a son-in-law, had hit upon the heir to the house of Derby as a suitable match for his child, and had entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the earl against the common enemy, Dorothy. The two fathers had partly agreed that the heir to Derby should wed the heiress of Haddon. The heir, although he had never seen his cousin except when she was a plain, unattractive girl, was entirely willing for the match, but the heiress—well, she had not been consulted, and everybody connected with the affair instinctively knew there would be trouble in that quarter. Sir George, however, had determined that Dorothy should do her part in case the contract of marriage should be agreed upon between the heads of the houses. He had fully resolved to assert the majesty of the law vested in him as a father and to compel Dorothy to do his bidding, if there were efficacy in force and chastisement. At the time when Sir George spoke to Dorothy about the Derby marriage, she had been a prisoner for a fortnight or more, and had learned that her only hope against her father lay in cunning. So she wept, and begged for time in which to consider the answer she would give to Lord Derby's request. She begged for two months, or even one month, in which to bring herself to accede to her father's commands.

"You have always been so kind and good to me, father, that I shall try to obey if you and the earl eventually agree upon terms," she said tearfully, having no intention whatever of trying to do anything but disobey.

"Try!" stormed Sir George. "Try to obey me! By God, girl, I say you shall obey!"

"Oh, father, I am so young. I have not seen my cousin for years. I do not want to leave you, and I have never thought twice of any man. Do not drive me from you."

Sir George, eager to crush in the outset any disposition to oppose his will, grew violent and threatened his daughter with dire punishment if she were not docile and obedient.

Then said rare Dorothy:—

"It would indeed be a great match." Greater than ever will happen, she thought. "I should be a countess." She strutted across the room with head up and with dilating nostrils. The truth was, she desired to gain her liberty once more that she might go to John, and was ready to promise anything to achieve that end. "What sort of a countess would I make, father?"

"A glorious countess, Doll, a glorious countess," said her father, laughing. "You are a good girl to obey me so readily."

"Oh, but I have not obeyed you yet," returned Dorothy, fearing that her father might be suspicious of a too ready acquiescence.

"But you will obey me," answered Sir George, half in command and half in entreaty.

"There are not many girls who would refuse the coronet of a countess." She then seated herself upon her father's knee and kissed him, while Sir George laughed softly over his easy victory.

Blessed is the man who does not know when he is beaten.

Seeing her father's kindly humor, Dorothy said:—

"Father, do you still wish me to remain a prisoner in my rooms?"

"If you promise to be a good, obedient daughter," returned Sir George, "you shall have your liberty."

"I have always been that, father, and I am too old to learn otherwise," answered this girl, whose father had taught her deception by his violence. You may drive men, but you cannot drive any woman who is worth possessing. You may for a time think you drive her, but in the end she will have her way.

Dorothy's first act of obedience after regaining liberty was to send a letter to Manners by the hand of Jennie Faxton.

John received the letter in the evening, and all next day he passed the time whistling, singing, and looking now and again at his horologue. He walked about the castle like a happy wolf in a pen. He did not tell me there was a project on foot, with Dorothy as the objective, but I knew it, and waited with some impatience for the outcome.

Long before the appointed time, which was sunset, John galloped forth for Bowling Green Gate with joy and anticipation in his heart and pain in his conscience. As he rode, he resolved again and again that the interview toward which he was hastening should be the last he would have with Dorothy. But when he pictured the girl to himself, and thought upon her marvellous beauty and infinite winsomeness, his conscience was drowned in his longing, and he resolved that he would postpone resolving until the morrow.

John hitched his horse near the gate and stood looking between the massive iron bars toward Haddon Hall, whose turrets could be seen through the leafless boughs of the trees. The sun was sinking perilously low, thought John, and with each moment his heart also sank, while his good resolutions showed the flimsy fibre of their fabric and were rent asunder by the fear that she might not come. As the moments dragged on and she did not come, a hundred alarms tormented him. First among these was a dread that she might have made resolves such as had sprung up so plenteously in him, and that she might have been strong enough to act upon them and to remain at home. But he was mistaken in the girl. Such resolutions as he had been making and breaking had never come to her at all. The difference between the man and the woman was this: he resolved in his mind not to see her and failed in keeping to his resolution; while she resolved in her heart to see him—resolved that nothing in heaven or earth or the other place could keep her from seeing him, and succeeded in carrying out her resolution. The intuitive resolve, the one that does not know it is a resolution, is the sort before which obstacles fall like corn before the sickle.

After John had waited a weary time, the form of the girl appeared above the crest of the hill. She was holding up the skirt of her gown, and glided over the earth so rapidly that she appeared to be running. Beat! beat! oh, heart of John, if there is aught in womanhood to make you throb; if there is aught in infinite grace and winsomeness; if there is aught in perfect harmony of color and form and movement; if there is aught of beauty, in God's power to create that can set you pulsing, beat! for the fairest creature of His hand is hastening to greet you. The wind had dishevelled her hair and it was blowing in fluffy curls of golden red about her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed with joy and exercise, her red lips were parted, and her eyes—but I am wasting words. As for John's heart it almost smothered him with its beating. He had never before supposed that he could experience such violent throbbing within his breast and live. But at last she was at the gate, in all her exquisite beauty and winsomeness, and something must be done to make the heart conform to the usages of good society. She, too, was in trouble with her breathing, but John thought that her trouble was owing to exertion. However that may have been, nothing in heaven or earth was ever so beautiful, so radiant, so graceful, or so fair as this girl who had come to give herself to John. It seems that I cannot take myself away from the attractive theme.

"Ah, Sir John, you did come," said the girl, joyously.

"Yes," John succeeded in replying, after an effort, "and you—I thank you, gracious lady, for coming. I do not deserve—" the heart again asserted itself, and Dorothy stood by the gate with downcast eyes, waiting to learn what it was that John did not deserve. She thought he deserved everything good.

"I fear I have caused you fatigue," said John, again thinking, and with good reason, that he was a fool.

The English language, which he had always supposed to be his mother tongue, had deserted him as if it were his step-mother. After all, the difficulty, as John subsequently said, was that Dorothy's beauty had deprived him of the power to think. He could only see. He was entirely disorganized by a girl whom he could have carried away in his arms.

"I feel no fatigue," replied Dorothy.

"I feared that in climbing the hill you had lost your breath," answered disorganized John.

"So I did," she returned. Then she gave a great sigh and said, "Now I am all right again."

All right? So is the morning sun, so is the arching rainbow, and so are the flitting lights of the north in midwinter. All are "all right" because God made them, as He made Dorothy, perfect, each after its kind.

A long, uneasy pause ensued. Dorothy felt the embarrassing silence less than John, and could have helped him greatly had she wished to do so. But she had made the advances at their former meetings, and as she had told me, she "had done a great deal more than her part in going to meet him." Therefore she determined that he should do his own wooing thenceforward. She had graciously given him all the opportunity he had any right to ask.

While journeying to Bowling Green Gate, John had formulated many true and beautiful sentiments of a personal nature which he intended expressing to Dorothy; but when the opportunity came for him to speak, the weather, his horse, Dorothy's mare Dolcy, the queens of England and Scotland were the only subjects on which he could induce his tongue to perform, even moderately well.

Dorothy listened attentively while John on the opposite side of the gate discoursed limpingly on the above-named themes; and although in former interviews she had found those topics quite interesting, upon that occasion she had come to Bowling Green Gate to listen to something else and was piqued not to hear it. After ten or fifteen minutes she said demurely:—

"I may not remain here longer. I shall be missed at the Hall. I regained my liberty but yesterday, and father will be suspicious of me during the next few days. I must be watchful and must have a care of my behavior."

John summoned his wits and might have spoken his mind freely had he not feared to say too much. Despite Dorothy's witchery, honor, conscience, and prudence still bore weight with him, and they all dictated that he should cling to the shreds of his resolution and not allow matters to go too far between him and this fascinating girl. He was much in love with her; but Dorothy had reached at a bound a height to which he was still climbing. Soon John, also, was to reach the pinnacle whence honor, conscience, and prudence were to be banished.

"I fear I must now leave you," said Dorothy, as darkness began to gather.

"I hope I may soon see you again," said John.

"Sometime I will see you if—if I can," she answered with downcast eyes. "It is seldom I can leave the Hall alone, but I shall try to come here at sunset some future day." John's silence upon a certain theme had given offence.

"I cannot tell you how greatly I thank you," cried John.

"I will say adieu," said Dorothy, as she offered him her hand through the bars of the gate. John raised the hand gallantly to his lips, and when she had withdrawn it there seemed no reason for her to remain. But she stood for a moment hesitatingly. Then she stooped to reach into her pocket while she daintily lifted the skirt of her gown with the other hand and from the pocket drew forth a great iron key.

"I brought this key, thinking that you might wish to unlock the gate—and come to—to this side. I had great difficulty in taking it from the forester's closet, where it has been hanging for a hundred years or more."

She showed John the key, returned it to her pocket, made a courtesy, and moved slowly away, walking backward.

"Mistress Vernon," cried John, "I beg you to let me have the key."

"It is too late, now," said the girl, with downcast eyes. "Darkness is rapidly falling, and I must return to the Hall."

John began to climb the gate, but she stopped him. He had thrown away his opportunity.

"Please do not follow me, Sir John," said she, still moving backward. "I must not remain longer."

"Only for one moment," pleaded John.

"No," the girl responded, "I—I may, perhaps, bring the key when I come again. I am glad, Sir John, that you came to meet me this evening." She courtesied, and then hurried away toward Haddon Hall. Twice she looked backward and waved her hand, and John stood watching her through the bars till her form was lost to view beneath the crest of Bowling Green Hill.

"'I brought this key, thinking that you might wish to unlock the gate and come to this side,'" muttered John, quoting the girl's words. "Compared with you, John Manners, there is no other fool in this world." Then meditatively: "I wonder if she feels toward me as I feel toward her? Surely she does. What other reason could bring her here to meet me unless she is a brazen, wanton creature who is for every man." Then came a jealous thought that hurt him like the piercing of a knife. It lasted but a moment, however, and he continued muttering to himself: "If she loves me and will be my wife, I will—I will ... In God's name what will I do? If I were to marry her, old Vernon would kill her, and I—I should kill my father."

Then John mounted his horse and rode homeward the unhappiest happy man in England. He had made perilous strides toward that pinnacle sans honor, sans caution, sans conscience, sans everything but love.

That evening while we were walking on the battlements, smoking, John told me of his interview with Dorothy and extolled her beauty, grace, and winsomeness which, in truth, as you know, were matchless. But when he spoke of "her sweet, shy modesty," I came near to laughing in his face.

"Did she not write a letter asking you to meet her?" I asked.

"Why—y-e-s," returned John.

"And," I continued, "has she not from the first sought you?"

"It almost seems to be so," answered John, "but notwithstanding the fact that one might say—might call—that one might feel that her conduct is—that it might be—you know, well—it might be called by some persons not knowing all the facts in the case, immodest—I hate to use the word with reference to her—yet it does not appear to me to have been at all immodest in Mistress Vernon, and, Sir Malcolm, I should be deeply offended were any of my friends to intimate—"

"Now, John," I returned, laughing at him, "you could not, if you wished, make me quarrel with you; and if you desire it, I will freely avow my firm belief in the fact that my cousin Dorothy is the flower of modesty. Does that better suit you?"

I could easily see that my bantering words did not suit him at all; but I laughed at him, and he could not find it in his heart to show his ill-feeling.

"I will not quarrel with you," he returned; "but in plain words, I do not like the tone in which you speak of her. It hurts me, and I do not believe you would wilfully give me pain."

"Indeed, I would not," I answered seriously.

"Mistress Vernon's conduct toward me," John continued, "has been gracious. There has been no immodesty nor boldness in it."

I laughed again and said: "I make my humble apologies to her Majesty, Queen Dorothy. But in all earnestness, Sir John, you are right: Dorothy is modest and pure. As for her conduct toward you, there is a royal quality about beauty such as my cousin possesses which gives an air of graciousness to acts that in a plainer girl would seem bold. Beauty, like royalty, has its own prerogatives."

For a fortnight after the adventures just related, John, in pursuance of his oft-repeated resolution not to see Dorothy, rode every evening to Bowling Green Gate; but during that time he failed to see her, and the resolutions, with each failure, became weaker and fewer.

One evening, after many disappointments, John came to my room bearing in his hands a letter which he said Jennie Faxton had delivered to him at Bowling Green Gate.

"Mistress Vernon," said John, "and Lady Madge Stanley will ride to Derby-town to-morrow. They will go in the Haddon Hall coach, and Dawson will drive. Mistress Vernon writes to me thus:—

"'To SIR JOHN MANNERS:—

"'My good wishes and my kind greeting. Lady Madge Stanley, my good aunt, Lady Crawford, and myself do intend journeying to Derby-town to-morrow. My aunt, Lady Crawford, is slightly ill, and although I should much regret to see her sickness grow greater, yet if ill she must be, I do hope that her worst day will be upon the morrow, in which case she could not accompany Lady Madge and me. I shall nurse my good aunt carefully this day, and shall importune her to take plentifully of physic that she may quickly recover her health—after to-morrow. Should a gentleman ask of Will Dawson, who will be in the tap-room of the Royal Arms at eleven o'clock of the morning, Dawson will be glad to inform the gentleman concerning Lady Crawford's health. Let us hope that the physic will cure Lady Crawford—by the day after to-morrow at furthest. The said Will Dawson may be trusted. With great respect,

DOROTHY VERNON.'"

"I suppose the gentleman will be solicitous concerning Lady Crawford's health to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock," said I.

"The gentleman is now solicitous concerning Lady Crawford's health," answered John, laughingly. "Was there ever a lady more fair and gracious than Mistress Vernon?"

I smiled with a superior air at John's weakness, being, as you know, entirely free from his complaint myself, and John continued:—

"Perhaps you would call Mistress Dorothy bold for sending me this letter?"

"It is redolent with shyness," I answered. "But would you really wish poor Lady Crawford to be ill that you might witness Mistress Dorothy's modesty?"

"Please don't jest on that subject," said John, seriously. "I would wish anything, I fear, that would bring me an opportunity to see her, to look upon her face, and to hear her voice. For her I believe I would sacrifice every one who is dear to me. One day she shall be mine—mine at whatever cost—if she will be. If she will be. Ah, there is the rub! If she will be. I dare not hope for that."

"I think," said I, "that you really have some little cause to hope."

"You speak in the same tone again. Malcolm, you do not understand her. She might love me to the extent that I sometimes hope; but her father and mine would never consent to our union, and she, I fear, could not be induced to marry me under those conditions. Do not put the hope into my heart."

"You only now said she should be yours some day," I answered.

"So she shall," returned John, "so she shall."

"But Lady Madge is to be with her to-morrow," said I, my own heart beating with an ardent wish and a new-born hope, "and you may be unable, after all, to see Mistress Dorothy."

"That is true," replied John. "I do not know how she will arrange matters, but I have faith in her ingenuity."

Well might he have faith, for Dorothy was possessed of that sort of a will which usually finds a way.

"If you wish me to go with you to Derby-town, I will do so. Perhaps I may be able to entertain Lady Madge while you have a word with Dorothy. What think you of the plan?" I asked.

"If you will go with me, Malcolm, I shall thank you with all my heart."

And so it was agreed between us that we should both go to Derby-town for the purpose of inquiring about Lady Crawford's health, though for me the expedition was full of hazard.

CHAPTER VI

A DANGEROUS TRIP TO DERBY-TOWN

The next morning broke brightly, but soon clouds began to gather and a storm seemed imminent. We feared that the gloomy prospect of the sky might keep Dorothy and Madge at home, but long before the appointed hour John and I were at the Royal Arms watching eagerly for the Haddon coach. At the inn we occupied a room from which we could look into the courtyard, and at the window we stood alternating between exaltation and despair.

When my cogitations turned upon myself—a palpitating youth of thirty-five, waiting with beating heart for a simple blind girl little more than half my age; and when I remembered how for years I had laughed at the tenderness of the fairest women of the French and Scottish courts—I could not help saying to myself, "Poor fool! you have achieved an early second childhood." But when I recalled Madge in all her beauty, purity, and helplessness, my cynicism left me, and I, who had enjoyed all of life's ambitious possibilities, calmly reached the conclusion that it is sometimes a blessed privilege to be a fool. While I dwelt on thoughts of Madge, all the latent good within me came uppermost. There is latent good in every man, though it may remain latent all his life. Good resolves, pure thoughts, and noble aspirations—new sensations to me, I blush to confess—bubbled in my heart, and I made a mental prayer, "If this is folly, may God banish wisdom." What is there, after all is said, in wisdom, that men should seek it? Has it ever brought happiness to its possessor? I am an old man at this writing. I have tasted all the cups of life, and from the fulness of my experience I tell you that the simple life is the only one wherein happiness is found. When you permit your heart and your mind to grow complex and wise, you make nooks and crannies for wretchedness to lodge in. Innocence is Nature's wisdom; knowledge is man's folly.

An hour before noon our patience was rewarded when we saw the Haddon Hall coach drive into the courtyard with Dawson on the box. I tried to make myself believe that I did not wish Lady Crawford were ill. But there is little profit in too close scrutiny of our deep-seated motives, and in this case I found no comfort in self-examination. I really did wish that Aunt Dorothy were ill.

My motive studying, however, was brought to a joyous end when I saw Will Dawson close the coach door after Madge and Dorothy had alighted.

How wondrously beautiful they were! Had we lived in the days when Olympus ruled the world, John surely would have had a god for his rival. Dorothy seemed luminous, so radiant was she with the fire of life. As for Madge, had I beheld a corona hovering over her head I should have thought it in all respects a natural and appropriate phenomenon—so fair and saintlike did she appear to me. Her warm white furs and her clinging gown of soft light-colored woollen stuff seemed to be a saint's robe, and her dainty little hat, fashioned with ermine about the edge of the rim—well, that was the corona, and I was ready to worship.

Dorothy, as befitted her, wore a blaze of harmonious colors and looked like the spirit of life and youth. I wish I could cease rhapsodizing over those two girls, but I cannot. You may pass over it as you read, if you do not like it.

"Ye gods! did ever a creature so perfect as she tread the earth?" asked John, meaning, of course, Dorothy.

"No," answered I, meaning, of course, Madge.

The girls entered the inn, and John and I descended to the tap-room for the purpose of consulting Will Dawson concerning the state of Aunt Dorothy's health.

When we entered the tap-room Will was standing near the fireplace with a mug of hot punch in his hand. When I touched him, he almost dropped the mug so great was his surprise at seeing me.

"Sir Mal—" he began to say, but I stopped him by a gesture. He instantly recovered his composure and appeared not to recognize me.

I spoke in broken English, for, as you know, I belong more to France than to any other country. "I am Sir François de Lorraine," said I. "I wish to inquire if Lady Crawford is in good health?"

"Her ladyship is ill, sir, I am sorry to say," responded Will, taking off his hat. "Mistress Vernon and Lady Madge Stanley are at the inn. If you wish to inquire more particularly concerning Lady Crawford's health, I will ask them if they wish to receive you. They are in the parlor."

Will was the king of trumps!

"Say to them," said I, "that Sir François de Lorraine—mark the name carefully, please—and his friend desire to make inquiry concerning Lady Crawford's health, and would deem it a great honor should the ladies grant them an interview."

Will's countenance was as expressionless as the face upon the mug from which he had been drinking. "I shall inform the ladies of your honor's request." He thereupon placed the half-emptied mug upon the fire-shelf and left the room.

When Will announced his errand to the girls, Dorothy said in surprise:—

"Sir François de Lorraine? That is the name of the Grand Duc de Guise, but surely—Describe him to me, Will."

"He is about your height, Mistress Dorothy, and is very handsome," responded Will.

The latter part of Will's description placed me under obligation to him to the extent of a gold pound sterling.

"Ah, it is John!" thought Dorothy, forgetting the fact that John was a great deal taller than she, but feeling that Will's description of "very handsome" could apply to only one man in the world. "He has taken Malcolm's name." Then she said, "Bring him to us, Will. But who is the friend? Do you know him? Tell me his appearance."

"I did not notice the other gentleman," replied Will, "and I can tell you nothing of him."

"Will, you are a very stupid man. But bring the gentlemen here." Dorothy had taken Will into her confidence to the extent of telling him that a gentleman would arrive at the Royal Arms who would inquire for Lady Crawford's health, and that she, Dorothy, would fully inform the gentleman upon that interesting topic. Will may have had suspicions of his own, but if so, he kept them to himself, and at least did not know that the gentleman whom his mistress expected to see was Sir John Manners. Neither did he suspect that fact. Dawson had never seen Manners, and did not know he was in the neighborhood of Derby. The fact was concealed from Dawson by Dorothy not so much because she doubted him, but for the reason that she wished him to be able truthfully to plead innocence in case trouble should grow out of the Derby-town escapade.

"I wonder why John did not come alone?" thought Dorothy. "This friend of his will be a great hindrance."

Dorothy ran to the mirror and hurriedly gave a few touches to her hair, pressing it lightly with her soft flexible fingers here, and tucking in a stray curl there, which for beauty's sake should have been allowed to hang loose. She was standing at the pier-glass trying to see the back of her head when Will knocked to announce our arrival.

"Come," said Dorothy.

Will opened the door and held it for us to pass in. Madge was seated near the fire. When we entered Dorothy was standing with great dignity in the centre of the floor, not of course intending to make an exhibition of delight over John in the presence of a stranger. But when she saw that I was the stranger, she ran to me with outstretched hands.

"Good morning, Mistress Vernon," said I, in mock ceremoniousness.

"Oh, Malcolm! Malcolm!" cried Madge, quickly rising from her chair. "You are cruel, Dorothy, to surprise me in this fashion."

"I, too, am surprised. I did not know that Malcolm was coming," replied Dorothy, turning to give welcome to John. Then I stepped to Madge's side and took her hands, but all I could say was "Madge! Madge!" and all she said was "Malcolm! Malcolm!" yet we seemed to understand each other.

John and Dorothy were likewise stricken with a paucity of words, but they also doubtless understood each other. After a moment or two there fell upon me a shower of questions from Dorothy.

"Did you not go to France? How happens it that you are in Derby-town? Where did you meet Sir John? What a delightful surprise you have given us! Nothing was wanting to make us happy but your presence."

"I am so happy that it frightens me," said Dorothy in ecstasy. "Trouble will come, I am sure. One extreme always follows another. The pendulum always swings as far back as it goes forward. But we are happy now, aren't we, Madge? I intend to remain so while I can. The pendulum may swing as far backward as it chooses hereafter. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. Sometimes the joy is almost sufficient, isn't it, Madge?"

"The evil is more than sufficient some days," answered Madge.

"Come, Madge, don't be foreboding."

"Dorothy, I have not met the other gentleman," said Madge.

"Ah, pardon me. In my surprise I forgot to present you. Lady Madge Stanley, let me present Sir John Manners."

"Sir John Manners!" cried Madge, taking a step backward. Her surprise was so great that she forgot to acknowledge the introduction. "Dorothy, what means this?" she continued.

"It means," replied Dorothy, nervously, "that Sir John is my very dear friend. I will explain it to you at another time."

We stood silently for a few moments, and John said:—

"I hope I may find favor in your heart, Lady Madge. I wish to greet you with my sincere homage."

"Sir John, I am glad to greet you, but I fear the pendulum of which Dorothy spoke will swing very far backward erelong."

"Let it swing as far back as it chooses," answered Dorothy, with a toss of her head, "I am ready to buy and to pay for happiness. That seems to be the only means whereby we may have it. I am ready to buy it with pain any day, and am willing to pay upon demand. Pain passes away; joy lasts forever."

"I know," said Sir John, addressing Madge, "I know it is not prudent for Malcolm and me to be here to-day; but imprudent things seem to be the most delightful."

"For men, Sir John," returned Madge. "Upon women they leave their mark."

"I fear you are right," he answered. "I had not thought of my visit in that light. For Mistress Vernon's sake it is better that I do not remain in Derby."

"For Mistress Vernon's sake you shall remain," cried that impetuous young woman, clutching John's arm.

After a time, Dorothy wishing to visit one of the shops to make purchases, it was agreed between us that we should all walk out. Neither Dorothy nor Madge had ever before visited Derby-town. John and I had visited the place but once; that was upon the occasion of our first meeting. No one in the town knew us, and we felt safe in venturing forth into the streets. So we helped Dorothy and Madge to don their furs, and out we went happier and more reckless than four people have any good right to be. But before setting out I went to the tap-room and ordered dinner.

I found the host and directed him to prepare a dozen partridges in a pie, a haunch of venison, a few links of German sausage, and a capon. The host informed me that he had in his pantry a barrel of roots called potatoes which had been sent to him by a sea-captain who had recently returned from the new world. He hurried away and brought a potato for inspection. It was of a gray brown color and near the size of an egg. The landlord assured me that it was delicious when baked, and I ordered four, at the cost of a crown each. I understand that my Lord Raleigh claims to have brought the first potatoes and tobacco into England in '85; but I know that I smoked tobacco in '66, and I saw potatoes at the Royal Arms in Derby-town in '67. I also ordered another new dish for our famous dinner. It was a brown beverage called coffee. The berries from which the beverage is made mine host showed to me, and said they had been brought to him by a sea-faring man from Arabia. I ordered a pot of the drink at a cost of three crowns. I have heard it said that coffee was not known in Europe or in England till it was introduced by Rawolf in '73, but I saw it at the Royal Arms in '67. In addition to this list, I ordered for our drinking sweet wine from Madeira and red wine from Burgundy. The latter-named wine had begun to grow in favor at the French court when I left France five years before. It was little liked in England. All these dainties were rare at the time of which I write; but they have since grown into considerable use, and I doubt not, as we progress in luxury, they will become common articles of food upon the tables of the rich. Prongs, or forks, as they are called, which by some are used in cutting and eating one's food at table, I also predict will become implements of daily use. It is really a filthy fashion, which we have, of handling food with our fingers. The Italians have used forks for some time, but our preachers speak against them, saying God has given us our fingers with which to eat, and that it is impious to thwart his purposes by the use of forks. The preachers will probably retard the general use of forks among the common people.

After I had given my order for dinner we started out on our ramble through Derby-town.

Shortly after we left the inn we divided into couples for the ostensible reason that we did not wish to attract too much attention—Dorothy and John, Madge and I! Our real reason for separating was—but you understand.

Madge's hand lay like a span of snow upon my arm, and—but this time I will restrain my tendency to rhapsodize.

We walked out through those parts of the town which were little used, and Madge talked freely and happily.

She fairly babbled, and to me her voice was like the murmurings of the rivers that flowed out of paradise.

We had agreed with John and Dorothy to meet them at the Royal Arms in one hour, and that time had almost passed when Madge and I turned our faces toward the inn.

When we were within a short distance of our hostelry we saw a crowd gathered around a young man who was standing on a box. He was speaking in a mournful, lugubrious voice and accompanied his words with violent gesticulations. Out of curiosity we stopped to listen, and learned that religion was our orator's theme.

I turned to a man standing near me and asked:—

"Who is the fellow speaking?"

"The pious man is Robert Brown. He is exhorting in the name of the Lord of Hosts."

"The pious Robert Brown?" I queried, "exhorting in the name of—of the Lord of where, did you say?"

"Hosts," laconically responded my friend, while listening intently to the words of Brown.

"Hosts, say you? Who is he?" I asked of my interesting neighbor. "I know him not."

"Doubtless you know Him not," responded the man, evidently annoyed at my interruption and my flippancy.

After a moment or two I, desiring to know more concerning the orator, asked:—

"Robert Brown, say you?"

"Even he," came the response. "It will be good for your soul if you but listen to him in a prayerful mood. He is a young man upon whom the Spirit hath descended plenteously."

"The Spirit?" I asked.

"Ay," returned my neighbor.

I could not extract another word from him, so I had the worst of the encounter.

We had been standing there but a short time when the young exhorter descended from his improvised pulpit and passed among the crowd for the purpose of collecting money. His harangue had appeared ridiculous to me, but Madge seemed interested in his discourse. She said:—

"He is very earnest, Malcolm," and at once my heart went out to the young enthusiast upon the box. One kind word from Madge, and I was the fellow's friend for life. I would have remained his friend had he permitted me that high privilege. But that he would not do. When he came to me, I dropped into his hat a small silver piece which shone brightly among a few black copper coins. My liberal contribution did not induce him to kindness, but, on the contrary, it attracted his attention to the giver. He looked at the silver coin, and then turning his solemn gaze upon me, eyed me insolently from head to foot. While doing so a look of profound disgust spread over his mournful countenance. After a calm survey of my person, which to me was uncomfortably long, he turned to the bystanders, and in the same high-pitched, lugubrious voice which he had used when exhorting, said:—

"Brethren, here behold ye the type of anti-Christ," and he waved his thin hand toward me much to my amusement and annoyance. "Here," said he, "we find the leading strings to all that is iniquitous—vanity. It is betokened in his velvets, satins, and laces. Think ye, young man," he said, turning to me, "that such vanities are not an abomination in the eyes of the God of Israel?"

"I believe that the God of Israel cares nothing about my apparel," I replied, more amused than angered. He paid no attention to my remark.

"And this young woman," he continued, pointing to Madge, "this young woman, daughter of the Roman harlot, no doubt, she also is arrayed in silks, taffetas, and fine cloth. Look ye, friends, upon this abominable collar of Satan; this ruff of fine linen, all smeared in the devil's own liquor, starch. Her vanity is an offence in the nostrils of God's people."

As he spoke he stretched forth his hand and caught in his clawlike grasp the dainty white ruff that encircled Madge's neck. When I saw his act, my first impulse was to run him through, and I drew my sword half from its scabbard with that purpose. But he was not the sort of a man upon whom I could use my blade. He was hardly more than a boy—a wild, half-crazed fanatic, whose reason, if he had ever possessed any, had been lost in the Charybdis of his zeal. He honestly thought it was his duty to insult persons who apparently disagreed with him. Such a method of proselyting is really a powerful means of persuasion among certain classes, and it has always been used by men who have successfully founded permanent religious sects. To plant successfully a religious thought or system requires more violent aggression than to conquer a nation.

Since I could not run the fellow through, I drew back my arm, and striking as lightly as possible, I laid our zealous friend sprawling on his back. Thus had I the honor of knocking down the founder of the Brownists.

If I mistake not, the time will come, if these men are allowed to harangue the populace, when the kings of England will be unable to accomplish the feat of knocking down Brown's followers. Heresies, like noxious weeds, grow without cultivation, and thrive best on barren soil. Or shall I say that, like the goodly vine, they bear better fruit when pruned? I cannot fully decide this question for myself; but I admire these sturdy fanatics who so passionately love their own faith, and so bitterly hate all others, and I am almost prepared to say that each new heresy brings to the world a better orthodoxy.

For a little time after my encounter with Brown, all my skill was needed to ward off the frantic hero. He quickly rose to his feet, and, with the help of his friends, seemed determined to spread the gospel by tearing me to pieces. My sword point kept the rabble at a respectful distance for a while, but they crowded closely upon me, and I should have been compelled to kill some of them had I not been reënforced by two men who came to my help and laid about them most joyfully with their quarterstaffs. A few broken heads stemmed for a moment the torrent of religious enthusiasm, and during a pause in the hostilities I hurriedly retreated with Madge, ungratefully leaving my valiant allies to reap the full reward of victory should the fortunes of war favor them.

Madge was terribly frightened, and with her by my side I, of course, would not have remained to fight the redoubtable Bayard himself.

We hurried forward, but before we reached the inn we were overtaken by our allies whom we had abandoned. Our friends were young men. One wore a rich, half-rustic habit, and the other was dressed as a horse boy. Both were intoxicated. I had been thankful for their help; but I did not want their company.

"How now, Cousin Madge?" said our richly dressed ally. "What in the devil's name has brought you into this street broil?"

"Ah, Cousin James, is it you?" replied the trembling girl.

"Yes, but who is your friend that so cleverly unloaded his quarrel upon us? Hell's fires! but they were like a swarm of wasps. Who is your friend, Madge?"

"Sir Malcolm Vernon," replied Madge. "Let me present you, Sir Malcolm, to my cousin, Lord James Stanley."

I offered my hand to his Lordship, and said:—

"I thank you much for your timely help. I should not have deserted you had I not felt that my first duty was to extricate Lady Madge from the disagreeable situation. We must hasten away from here, or the mad rabble will follow us."

"Right you are, my hearty," returned Stanley, slapping me on the shoulder. "Of course you had to get the wench away. Where do you go? We will bear you company."

I longed to pay the fellow for his help by knocking him down; but the possibilities of trouble ahead of us were already too great, and I forced myself to be content with the prowess already achieved.

"But you have not told me what brought you into the broil," asked his Lordship, as we walked toward the inn.

"Sir Malcolm and I were walking out to see the town and—"

"To see the town? By gad, that's good, Cousin Madge. How much of it did you see? You are as blind as an owl at noon," answered his Lordship.

"Alas! I am blind," returned Madge, clinging closely to me, and shrinking from her cousin's terrible jest. I could not think of anything sufficiently holy and sacred upon which to vow my vengeance against this fellow, if the time should ever come when I dared take it.

"Are you alone with this—this gentleman?" asked his Lordship, grasping Madge by the arm.

"No," returned Madge, "Dorothy is with us."

"She is among the shops," I volunteered reluctantly.

"Dorothy? Dorothy Vernon? By gad, Tod, we are in luck. I must see the wench I am to marry," said his Lordship, speaking to his companion, the stable boy. "So Dorothy is with you, is she, cousin? I haven't seen her for years. They say she is a handsome filly now. By gad, she had room to improve, for she was plain enough, to frighten rats away from a barn when I last saw her. We will go to the inn and see for ourselves, won't we, Tod? Dad's word won't satisfy us when it comes to the matter of marrying, will it, Tod?"

Tod was the drunken stable boy who had assisted his Lordship and me in our battle with the Brownists.

I was at a loss what course to pursue. I was forced to submit to this fellow's company, and to endure patiently his insolence. But John and Dorothy would soon return, and there is no need that I should explain the dangers of the predicament which would then ensue.

When we were within a few yards of the inn door I looked backward and saw Dorothy and John approaching us. I held up my hand warningly. John caught my meaning, and instantly leaving Dorothy's side, entered an adjacent shop. My movement had attracted Stanley's attention, and he turned in the direction I had been looking. When he saw Dorothy, he turned again to me and asked:—

"Is that Dorothy Vernon?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Look at her, Tod!" exclaimed my lord, "look at her, Tod! The dad was right about her, after all. I thought the old man was hoaxing me when he told me that she was beautiful. Holy Virgin, Tod, did you ever see anything so handsome? I will take her quick enough; I will take her. Dad won't need to tease me. I'm willing."

Dorothy approached to within a few yards of us, and my Lord Stanley stepped forward to meet her.

"Ye don't know me, do ye?" said Stanley.

Dorothy was frightened and quickly stepped to my side.

"I—I believe not," responded Dorothy.

"Lord James Stanley," murmured Madge, who knew of the approaching Stanley marriage.

"Madge is right," returned. Stanley, grinning foolishly. "I am your cousin James, but not so much of a cousin that I cannot be more than cousin, heh?" He laughed boisterously, and winking at Tod, thrust his thumb into that worthy's ribs. "Say, Tod, something more than cousin; that's the thing, isn't it, Tod?"

John was standing half-concealed at the door of the shop in which he had sought refuge. Dorothy well knew the peril of the situation, and when I frowned at her warningly, she caught the hint that she should not resent Stanley's words, however insulting and irritating they might become.

"Let us go to the inn," said Dorothy.

"That's the thing to do. Let us go to the inn and have dinner," said Stanley. "It's two hours past dinner time now, and I'm almost famished. We'll have a famous dinner. Come, cousin," said he, addressing Dorothy. "We'll have kidneys and tripe and—"

"We do not want dinner," said Dorothy. "We must return home at once. Sir Malcolm, will you order Dawson to bring out the coach?"

We went to the inn parlor, and I, loath to do so, left the ladies with Stanley and his horse-boy friend while I sought Dawson for the purpose of telling him to fetch the coach with all haste.

"We have not dined," said the forester.

"We shall not dine," I answered. "Fetch the coach with all the haste you can make." The bystanders in the tap-room were listening, and I continued, "A storm is brewing, and we must hasten home."

True enough, a storm was brewing.

When I left Dawson, I hurriedly found John and told him we were preparing to leave the inn, and that we would expect him to overtake us on the road to Rowsley.

I returned to the ladies in the parlor and found them standing near the window. Stanley had tried to kiss Dorothy, and she had slapped his face. Fortunately he had taken the blow good-humoredly, and was pouring into her unwilling ear a fusillade of boorish compliments when. I entered the parlor.

I said, "The coach is ready."

The ladies moved toward the door. "I am going to ride with you, my beauty," said his Lordship.

"That you shall not do," retorted Dorothy, with blazing eyes.

"That I will do," he answered. "The roads are free to all, and you cannot keep me from following you."

Dorothy was aware of her predicament, and I too saw it, but could find no way out of it. I was troubled a moment; but my fear was needless, for Dorothy was equal to the occasion.

"We should like your company, Cousin Stanley," replied Dorothy, without a trace of anger in her manner, "but we cannot let you ride with us in the face of the storm that is brewing."

"We won't mind the storm, will we, Tod? We are going with our cousin."

"If you insist upon being so kind to us," said Dorothy, "you may come. But I have changed my mind about dinner. I am very hungry, and we accept your invitation."

"Now you are coming around nicely," said Lord James, joyfully. "We like that, don't we, Tod?"

Tod had been silent under all circumstances.

Dorothy continued: "Madge and I will drive in the coach to one or two of the shops, and we shall return in one hour. Meantime, Cousin Stanley, we wish you to have a fine dinner prepared for us, and we promise to do ample justice to the fare."

"She'll never come back," said silent Tod, without moving a muscle.

"How about it, cousin?" asked Stanley. "Tod says you'll never come back; he means that you are trying to give us the slip."

"Never fear, Cousin Stanley," she returned, "I am too eager for dinner not to come back. If you fail to have a well-loaded table for me, I shall never speak to you again."

We then went to the coach, and as the ladies entered it Dorothy said aloud to Dawson:—

"Drive to Conn's shop."

I heard Tod say to his worthy master:—

"She's a slippin' ye."

"You're a fool, Tod. Don't you see she wants me more than she wants the dinner, and she's hungry, too."

"Don't see," retorted his laconic friend.

Of course when the coach was well away from the inn, Dawson received new instructions, and took the road to Rowsley. When the ladies had departed, I went to the tap-room with Stanley, and after paying the host for the coffee, the potatoes, and the dinner which alas! we had not tasted, I ordered a great bowl of sack and proceeded to drink with my allies in the hope that I might make them too drunk to follow us. Within half an hour I discovered that I was laboring at a hopeless task. There was great danger that I would be the first to succumb; so I, expressing a wish to sleep off the liquor before the ladies should return, made my escape from the tap-room, mounted my horse, and galloped furiously after Dorothy and Madge. John was riding by the coach when I overtook it.

It was two hours past noon when I came up with John and the girls. Snow had been falling softly earlier in the afternoon, but as the day advanced the storm grew in violence. A cold, bleak wind was blowing from the north, and by reason of the weather and because of the ill condition of the roads, the progress of the coach was so slow that darkness overtook us before we had finished half of our journey to Rowsley. Upon the fall of night the storm increased in violence, and the snow came in piercing, horizontal shafts which stung like the prick of a needle.

At the hour of six—I but guessed the time—John and I, who were riding at the rear of the coach, heard close on our heels the trampling of horses. I rode forward to Dawson, who was in the coach box, and told him to drive with all the speed he could make. I informed him that some one was following us, and that I feared highwaymen were on our track.

Hardly had I finished speaking to Dawson when I heard the report of a hand-fusil, back of the coach, near the spot where I had left John. I quickly drew my sword, though it was a task of no small labor, owing to the numbness of my fingers. I breathed along the blade to warm it, and then I hastened to John, whom I found in a desperate conflict with three ruffians. No better swordsman than John ever drew blade, and he was holding his ground in the darkness right gallantly. When I rode to his rescue, another hand-fusil was discharged, and then another, and I knew that we need have no more fear from bullets, for the three men had discharged their weapons, and they could not reload while John and I were engaging them. I heard the bullets tell upon the coach, and I heard the girls screaming lustily. I feared they had been wounded, but you may be sure I had no leisure to learn the truth. Three against two was terrible odds in the dark, where brute force and luck go for more than skill. We fought desperately for a while, but in the end we succeeded in beating off the highwaymen. When we had finished with the knaves who had attacked us, we quickly overtook our party. We were calling Dawson to stop when we saw the coach, careening with the slant of the hill, topple over, and fall to the bottom of a little precipice five or six feet in height. We at once dismounted and jumped down the declivity to the coach, which lay on its side, almost covered by drifted snow. The pole had broken in the fall, and the horses were standing on the road. We first saw Dawson. He was swearing like a Dutchman, and when we had dragged him from his snowy grave, we opened the coach door, lifted out the ladies, and seated them upon the uppermost side of the coach. They were only slightly bruised, but what they lacked in bruises they made up in fright. In respect to the latter it were needless for me to attempt a description.

We can laugh about it now and speak lightly concerning the adventure, and, as a matter of truth, the humor of the situation appealed to me even then. But imagine yourself in the predicament, and you will save me the trouble of setting forth its real terrors.

The snow was up to our belts, and we did not at first know how we were to extricate the ladies. John and Dawson, however, climbed to the road, and I carried Dorothy and Madge to the little precipice where the two men at the top lifted them from my arms. The coach was broken, and when I climbed to the road, John, Dawson, and myself held a council of war against the storm. Dawson said we were three good miles from Rowsley, and that he knew of no house nearer than the village at which we could find shelter. We could not stand in the road and freeze, so I got the blankets and robes from the coach and made riding pads for Dorothy and Madge. These we strapped upon the broad backs of the coach horses, and then assisted the ladies to mount. I walked by the side of Madge, and John performed the same agreeable duty for Dorothy. Dawson went ahead of us, riding my horse and leading John's; and thus we travelled to Rowsley, half dead and nearly frozen, over the longest three miles in the kingdom.

John left us before entering the village, and took the road to Rutland, intending to stop for the night at a cottage two miles distant, upon his father's estates. I was to follow Sir John when the ladies were safely lodged at The Peacock.

It was agreed between us that nothing should be said concerning the presence of any man save Dawson and myself in our party.

When John left us, I rode to The Peacock with Dorothy and Madge, and while I was bidding them good-by my violent cousin, Sir George, entered the inn. Dorothy ran to her father and briefly related the adventures of the night, dwelling with undeserved emphasis upon the help I had rendered. She told her father—the statement was literally true—that she had met me at the Royal Arms, where I was stopping, and that she had, through fear of the storm and in dread of highwaymen, asked me to ride beside their coach to Rowsley.

When I saw Sir George enter the room, I expected to have trouble with him; but after he had spoken with Dorothy, much to my surprise, he offered me his hand and said:—

"I thank you, Malcolm, for the help you have rendered my girls, and I am glad you have come back to us."

"I have not come back to you, Sir George," said I, withholding my hand. "I met Mistress Vernon and Lady Madge at the Royal Arms, and escorted them to Rowsley for reasons which she has just given to you. I was about to depart when you entered."

"Tut, tut! Malcolm, you will come with us to Haddon Hall."

"To be ordered away again, Sir George?" I asked.

"I did not order you to go. You left in a childish fit of anger. Why in the devil's name did you run away so quickly? Could you not have given a man time to cool off? You treated me very badly, Malcolm."

"Sir George, you certainly know—"

"I know nothing of the sort. Now I want not another word from you. Damme! I say, not another word. If I ever ordered you to leave Haddon Hall, I didn't know what I was doing," cried Sir George, heartily.

"But you may again not know," said I.

"Now, Malcolm, don't be a greater fool than I was. If I say I did not order you to leave Haddon Hall, can't you take me at my word? My age and my love for you should induce you to let me ease my conscience, if I can. If the same illusion should ever come over you again—that is, if you should ever again imagine that I am ordering you to leave Haddon Hall—well, just tell me to go to the devil. I have been punished enough already, man. Come home with us. Here is Dorothy, whom I love better than I love myself. In anger I might say the same thing to her that I said to you, but—Nonsense, Malcolm, don't be a fool. Come home with us. Haddon is your home as freely as it is the home of Dorothy, Madge, and myself."

The old gentleman's voice trembled, and I could not withstand the double force of his kindness and my desire. So it came about that when Madge held out her fair hand appealingly to me, and when Dorothy said, "Please come home with us, Cousin Malcolm," I offered my hand to Sir George, and with feeling said, "Let us make this promise to each other: that nothing hereafter shall come between us."

"I gladly promise," responded the generous, impulsive old man. "Dorothy, Madge, and you are all in this world whom I love. Nothing shall make trouble between us. Whatever happens, we will each forgive."

The old gentleman was in his kindest, softest mood.

"Let us remember the words," said I.

"I give my hand and my word upon it," cried Sir George.

How easy it is to stake the future upon a present impulse. But when the time for reckoning comes,—when the future becomes the present,—it is sometimes hard to pay the priceless present for the squandered past. Next morning we all rode home to Haddon,—how sweet the words sound even at this distance of time!—and there was rejoicing in the Hall as if the prodigal had returned.

In the evening I came upon Madge unawares. She was softly singing a plaintive little love song. I did not disturb her, and as I stole away again I said to myself, "God is good." A realization of that great truth had of late been growing upon me. When once we thoroughly learn it, life takes on a different color.

CHAPTER VII

TRIBULATION IN HADDON

After I had left Haddon at Sir George's tempestuous order, he had remained in a state of furious anger against Dorothy and myself for a fortnight or more. But after her adroit conversation with him concerning the Stanley marriage, wherein she neither promised nor refused, and after she learned that she could more easily cajole her father than command him, Dorothy easily ensconced herself again in his warm heart, and took me into that capacious abode along with her.

Then came the trip to Derby, whereby his serene Lordship, James Stanley, had been enabled to see Dorothy and to fall in love with her winsome beauty, and whereby I was brought back to Haddon. Thereafter came events crowding so rapidly one upon the heels of another that I scarce know where to begin the telling of them. I shall not stop to say, "Sir George told me this," or "Madge, Dorothy, or John told me that," but I shall write as if I had personal knowledge of all that happened. After all, the important fact is that I know the truth concerning matters whereof I write, and of that you may rest with surety.

The snow lay upon the ground for a fortnight after the storm in which we rode from Derby, but at the end of that time it melted, and the sun shone with the brilliancy and warmth of springtide. So warm and genial was the weather that the trees, flowers, and shrubs were cozened into budding forth. The buds were withered by a killing frost which came upon us later in the season at a time when the spring should have been abroad in all her graciousness, and that year was called the year of the leafless summer.

One afternoon Sir George received a distinguished guest in the person of the Earl of Derby, and the two old gentlemen remained closeted together for several hours. That night at supper, after the ladies had risen from table, Sir George dismissed the servants saying that he wished to speak to me in private. I feared that he intended again bringing forward the subject of marriage with Dorothy, but he soon relieved my mind.

"The Earl of Derby was here to-day. He has asked for Doll's hand in marriage with his eldest son and heir, Lord James Stanley, and I have granted the request."

"Indeed," I responded, with marvellous intelligence. I could say nothing more, but I thought—in truth I knew—that it did not lie within the power of any man in or out of England to dispose of Dorothy Vernon's hand in marriage to Lord James Stanley. Her father might make a murderess out of her, but Countess of Derby, never.

Sir George continued, "The general terms of the marriage contract have been agreed upon by the earl and me, and the lawyers will do the rest."

"What is your feeling in the matter?" I asked aimlessly.

"My feeling?" cried Sir George. "Why, sir, my feeling is that the girl shall marry Stanley just as soon as arrangements can be made for the wedding ceremony. The young fellow, it seems, saw Doll at Derby-town the day you came home, and since then he is eager, his father tells me, for the union. He is coming to see her when I give my permission, and I will send him word at as early a date as propriety will admit. I must not let them be seen together too soon, you know. There might be a hitch in the marriage negotiations. The earl is a tight one in business matters, and might drive a hard bargain with me should I allow his son to place Doll in a false position before the marriage contract is signed." He little knew how certainly Dorothy herself would avoid that disaster.

He took a long draught from his mug of toddy and winked knowingly at me, saying, "I am too wise for that."

"Have you told Dorothy?" I asked.

"No," he replied, "I have not exactly told her. I had a talk with her a few days ago on the subject, though the earl and I had not, at that time, entirely agreed upon the terms, and I did not know that we should agree. But I told her of the pending negotiations, because I wished to prepare her for the signing of the contract; and also, by gad, Malcolm, I wanted to make the girl understand at the outset that I will have no trifling with my commands in this matter. I made that feature of the case very plain, you may rest assured. She understands me fully, and although at first she was a little inclined to fight, she soon—she soon—well, she knuckled under gracefully when she found she must."

"Did she consent to the marriage?" I asked, well knowing that even if she had consented in words, she had no thought of doing so in deed.

"Y-e-s," returned Sir George, hesitatingly.

"I congratulate you," I replied.

"I shall grieve to lose Doll," the old man slowly continued with perceptible signs of emotion. "I shall grieve to lose my girl, but I am anxious to have the wedding over. You see, Malcolm, of late I have noticed signs of wilfulness in Doll that can be more easily handled by a husband than by a father. Marriage and children anchor a woman, you know. In truth, I have opened my eyes to the fact that Doll is growing dangerous. I'gad, the other day I thought she was a child, but suddenly I learn she is a woman. I had not before noticed the change. Beauty and wilfulness, such as the girl has of late developed, are powers not to be underestimated by wise men. There is hell in them, Malcolm, I tell you there is hell in them." Sir George meditatively snuffed the candle with his fingers and continued: "If a horse once learns that he can kick—sell him. Only yesterday, as I said, Doll was a child, and now, by Jove, she is a full-blown woman, and I catch myself standing in awe of her and calling her Dorothy. Yes, damme, standing in awe of my own child! That will never do, you know. What has wrought the change? And, after all, what is the change? I can't define it, but there has been a great one."

He was in a revery and spoke more to himself than to me. "Yesterday she was my child—she was a child, and now—and now—she is—she is—Why the devil didn't you take her, Malcolm?" cried the old man, awakening. "But there, never mind; that is all past and gone, and the future Earl of Derby will be a great match for her."

"Do you know the future Earl of Derby?" I asked. "Have you ever seen him?"

"No," Sir George replied. "I hear he is rather wild and uncouth, but—"

"My dear cousin," said I, interrupting him, "he is a vulgar, drunken clown, whose associates have always been stable boys, tavern maids, and those who are worse than either."

"What?" cried Sir George, hotly, the liquor having reached his brain. "You won't have Doll yourself, and you won't consent to another—damme, would you have the girl wither into spinsterhood? How, sir, dare you interfere?"

"I withdraw all I said, Sir George," I replied hastily. "I have not a word to say against the match. I thought—"

"Well, damn you, sir, don't think."

"You said you wished to consult me about the affair, and I supposed—"

"Don't suppose either," replied Sir George, sullenly. "Supposing and thinking have hanged many a man. I didn't wish to consult you. I simply wanted to tell you of the projected marriage." Then after a moment of half-maudlin, sullen silence he continued, "Go to bed, Malcolm, go to bed, or we'll be quarrelling again."

I was glad enough to go to bed, for my cousin was growing drunk, and drink made a demon of this man, whose violence when sober was tempered by a heart full of tenderness and love.

Next morning Sir George was feeling irritable from the effects of the brandy he had drunk over night. At breakfast, in the presence of Lady Crawford, Madge, and myself, he abruptly informed Dorothy that he was about to give that young goddess to Lord James Stanley for his wife. He told her of the arrangement he had made the day before with the Earl of Derby. Lady Crawford looked toward her brother in surprise, and Madge pushed her chair a little way back from the table with a startled movement. Dorothy sprang to her feet, her eyes flashing fire and her breast rising and falling like the storm-wrought pulsing of the sea. I coughed warningly and placed my finger on my lips, making the sign of silence to Dorothy. The girl made a wondrous and beautiful struggle against her wrath, and in a moment all signs of ill-temper disappeared, and her face took on an expression of sweet meekness which did not belong there of right. She quietly sat down again, and when I looked at her, I would have sworn that Griselda in the flesh was sitting opposite me. Sir George was right. "Ways such as the girl had of late developed were dangerous." Hell was in them to an extent little dreamed of by her father. Breakfast was finished in silence. Dorothy did not come down to dinner at noon, but Sir George did not mark her absence. At supper her place was still vacant.

"Where is Doll?" cried Sir George, angrily. He had been drinking heavily during the afternoon. "Where is Doll?" he demanded.

"She is on the terrace," answered Madge. "She said she did not want supper."

"Tell your mistress to come to supper," said Sir George, speaking to one of the servants. "You will find her on the terrace."

The servant left the room, but soon returned, saying that Mistress Dorothy wanted no supper.

"Tell her to come to the table whether she wants supper or not. Tell her I will put a stop to her moping about the place like a surly vixen," growled Sir George.

"Don't send such a message by a servant," pleaded Lady Crawford.

"Then take it to her yourself, Dorothy," exclaimed her brother.

Dorothy returned with her aunt and meekly took her place at the table.

"I will have none of your moping and pouting," said Sir George, as Dorothy was taking her chair.

The girl made no reply, but she did not eat.

"Eat your supper," her father commanded. "I tell you I will have no—"

"You would not have me eat if I am not hungry, would you, father?" she asked softly.

"I'd have you hungry, you perverse wench."

"Then make me an appetite," returned the girl. I never heard more ominous tones fall from human lips. They betokened a mood in which one could easily do murder in cold blood, and I was surprised that Sir George did not take warning and remain silent.

"I cannot make an appetite for you, fool," he replied testily.

"Then you cannot make me eat," retorted Dorothy.

"Ah, you would answer me, would you, you brazen, insolent huzzy," cried her father, angrily.

Dorothy held up her hand warningly to Sir George, and uttered the one word, "Father." Her voice sounded like the clear, low ring of steel as I have heard it in the stillness of sunrise during a duel to the death. Madge gently placed her hand in Dorothy's, but the caress met no response.

"Go to your room," answered Sir George.

Dorothy rose to her feet and spoke calmly: "I have not said that I would disobey you in regard to this marriage which you have sought for me; and your harshness, father, grows out of your effort to reconcile your conscience with the outrage you would put upon your own flesh and blood—your only child."

"Suffering God!" cried Sir George, frenzied with anger and drink. "Am I to endure such insolence from my own child? The lawyers will be here to-morrow. The contract will be signed, and, thank God, I shall soon be rid of you. I'll place you in the hands of one who will break your damnable will and curb your vixenish temper." Then he turned to Lady Crawford. "Dorothy, if there is anything to do in the way of gowns and women's trumpery in preparation for the wedding, begin at once, for the ceremony shall come off within a fortnight."

This was beyond Dorothy's power to endure. Madge felt the storm coming and clutched her by the arm in an effort to stop her, but nothing could have done that.

"I marry Lord Stanley?" she asked in low, bell-like tones, full of contempt and disdain. "Marry that creature? Father, you don't know me."

"By God, I know myself," retorted Sir George, "and I say—"

"Now hear me, father," she interrupted in a manner that silenced even him. She bent forward, resting one fair hand upon the table, while she held out her other arm bared to the elbow. "Hear what I say and take it for the truth as if it had come from Holy Writ. I will open the veins in this arm and will strew my blood in a gapless circle around Haddon Hall so that you shall tread upon it whenever you go forth into the day or into the night before I will marry the drunken idiot with whom you would curse me. Ay, I will do more. I will kill you, if need be, should you try to force him on me. Now, father, we understand each other. At least you cannot fail to understand me. For the last time I warn you. Beware of me."

She gently pushed the chair back from the table, quietly adjusted the sleeve which she had drawn upward from her wrist, and slowly walked out of the room, softly humming the refrain of a roundelay. There was no trace of excitement about the girl. Her brain was acting with the ease and precision of a perfectly constructed machine. Sir George, by his violence and cruelty, had made a fiend of this strong, passionate, tender heart. That was all.

The supper, of course, was quickly finished, and the ladies left the room.

Sir George took to his bottle and remained with it till his servants put him to bed. I slipped away from him and smoked a pipe in front of the kitchen fire. Then I went early to my bed in Eagle Tower.

Dorothy went to her apartments. There she lay upon her bed, and for a time her heart was like flint. Soon she thought of her precious golden heart pierced with a silver arrow, and tears came to her eyes as she drew the priceless treasure from her breast and breathed upon it a prayer to the God of love for help. Her heart was soft again, soft only as hers could be, and peace came to her as she pressed John's golden heart to her lips and murmured over and over the words, "My love, my love, my love," and murmuring fell asleep.

I wonder how many of the countless women of this world found peace, comfort, and ecstasy in breathing those magic words yesterday? How many have found them to-day? How many will find them to-morrow? No one can tell; but this I know, they come to every woman at some time in her life, righteously or unrighteously, as surely as her heart pulses.

That evening Jennie Faxton bore a letter to John, informing him of the projected Stanley marriage. It asked him to meet the writer at Bowling Green Gate, and begged him to help her if he could.

The small and intermittent remnants of conscience, sense of duty, and caution which still remained in John's head—I will not say in John's heart, for that was full to overflowing with something else—were quickly banished by the unwelcome news in Dorothy's letter. His first impulse was to kill Stanley; but John Manners was not an assassin, and a duel would make public all he wished to conceal. He wished to conceal, among other things, his presence at Rutland. He had two reasons for so desiring. First in point of time was the urgent purpose with which he had come to Derbyshire. That purpose was to further a plan for the rescue of Mary Stuart and to bring her incognito to Rutland Castle as a refuge until Elizabeth could be persuaded to receive her. Of this plan I knew nothing till after the disastrous attempt to carry it out, of which I shall hereafter tell you. The other reason why John wished his presence at Rutland unknown was that if he were supposed to be in London, no one would suspect him of knowing Dorothy Vernon.

You must remember there had been no overt love-making between John and Dorothy up to that time. The scene at the gate approached perilously near it, but the line between concealment and confession had not been crossed. Mind you, I say there had been no love-making between them. While Dorothy had gone as far in that direction as a maiden should dare go—and to tell the exact truth, a great deal farther—John had remained almost silent for reasons already given you. He also felt a fear of the girl, and failed to see in her conduct those signs of intense love which would have been plainly discernible had not his perceptions been blinded by the fury of his own infatuation. He had placed a curb on his passion and did not really know its strength and power until he learned that another man was soon to possess the girl he loved. Then life held but one purpose for him. Thus, you see that when Dorothy was moaning, "My love, my love," and was kissing the golden heart, she was taking a great deal for granted. Perhaps, however, she better understood John's feeling for her than did he himself. A woman's sixth sense, intuition, is a great help to her in such cases. Perhaps the girl knew with intuitive confidence that her passion was returned; and perhaps at first she found John's receptive mode of wooing sweeter far than an aggressive attack would have been. It may be also there was more of the serpent's cunning than of reticence in John's conduct. He knew well the ways of women, and perhaps he realized that if he would allow Dorothy to manage the entire affair she would do his wooing for him much better than he could do it for himself. If you are a man, try the plan upon the next woman whom you seek to win. If she happens to be one who has full confidence in her charms, you will be surprised at the result. Women lacking that confidence are restrained by fear and doubt. But in no case have I much faith in the hammer-and-tongs process at the opening of a campaign. Later on, of course—but you doubtless are quite as well informed concerning this important subject as I. There is, however, so much blundering in that branch of science that I have a mind to endow a college at Oxford or at Paris in which shall be taught the gentle, universally needed art of making love. What a noble attendance such a college would draw. But I have wandered wofully from my story.