Lady Crawford laughed. "She shall not escape. Have no fear of that, Malcolm. The key to the door is always safely locked in my reticule. No girl can outwit me. I am too old to be caught unawares by a mere child like Dorothy. It makes me laugh, Malcolm--although I am sore at heart for Dorothy's sake--it makes me laugh, with a touch of tears, when I think of poor simple Dorothy's many little artifices to gain possession of this key. They are amusing and pathetic. Poor child! But I am too old to be duped by a girl, Malcolm, I am too old. She has no chance to escape."

I said to myself: "No one has ever become too old to be duped by a girl who is in love. Her wits grow keen as the otter's fur grows thick for the winter's need. I do not know your niece's plan; but if I mistake not, Aunt Dorothy, you will in one respect, at least, soon be rejuvenated."

"I am sure Lady Crawford is right in what she says," spoke my other self, "and Sir George is fortunate in having for his daughter a guardian who cannot be hoodwinked and who is true to a distasteful trust. I would the trouble were over and that Dorothy were well married."

"So wish I, Malcolm, with all my heart," replied Aunt Dorothy.

After a brief pause in the conversation Malcolm No. 2 said:--

"I must now take my leave. Will you kindly unlock the door and permit me to say good night?"

"If you must go," answered my lady, glad enough to be left alone with her beloved Sir Philip. Then she unlocked the door.

"Keep good watch, my dear aunt," said Malcolm. "I greatly fear that Dorothy--" but the door closed on the remainder of the sentence and on Dorothy Vernon.

"Nonsense!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old lady somewhat impatiently. "Why should he fear for Dorothy? I hope I shall not again be disturbed." And soon she was deep in the pages of her book.

CHAPTER IX

A TRYST AT BOWLING GREEN GATE

I was at a loss what course to pursue, and I remained for a moment in puzzling thought. I went back to Madge, and after closing the door, told her of all I had seen. She could not advise me, and of course she was deeply troubled and concerned. After deliberating, I determined to speak to Aunt Dorothy that she might know what had happened. So I opened the door and walked into Lady Crawford's presence. After viewing my lady's back for a short time, I said:--

"I cannot find my hat, cloak, and sword. I left them in Dorothy's bedroom.

Has any one been here since I entered?"

The old lady turned quickly upon me, "Since you entered?" she cried in wonderment and consternation. "Since you left, you mean. Did you not leave this room a few minutes ago? What means this? How found you entrance without the key?"

"I did not leave this room, Aunt Dorothy; you see I am here," I responded.

"Who did leave? Your wraith? Some one--Dorothy!" screamed the old lady in terror. "That girl!!--Holy Virgin! where is she?"

Lady Crawford hastened to Dorothy's room and returned to me in great agitation.

"Were you in the plot?" she demanded angrily.

"No more than were you, Lady Crawford," I replied, telling the exact truth. If I were accessory to Dorothy's crime, it was only as a witness and Aunt Dorothy had seen as much as I.

I continued: "Dorothy left Lady Madge and me at the window, saying she wished to make a change in her garments. I was watching the sunset and talking with Lady Madge."

Lady Crawford, being full of concern about the main event,--Dorothy's escape,--was easily satisfied that I was not accessory before the fact.

"What shall I do, Malcolm? What shall I do? Help me, quickly. My brother will return in the morning--perhaps he will return to-night--and he will not believe that I have not intentionally permitted Dorothy to leave the Hall. I have of late said so much to him on behalf of the girl that he suspects me already of being in sympathy with her. He will not believe me when I tell him that I have been duped. The ungrateful, selfish girl! How could she so unkindly return my affection!"

The old lady began to weep.

I did not believe that Dorothy intended to leave Haddon Hall permanently.

I felt confident she had gone out only to meet John, and was sure she would soon return. On the strength of that opinion I said: "If you fear that Sir George will not believe you--he certainly will blame you--would it not be better to admit Dorothy quietly when she returns and say nothing to any one concerning the escapade? I will remain here in these rooms, and when she returns I will depart, and the guards will never suspect that Dorothy has left the Hall."

"If she will but return," wailed Aunt Dorothy, "I shall be only too glad to admit her and to keep silent."

"I am sure she will," I answered. "Leave orders with the guard at Sir George's door to admit me at any time during the night, and Dorothy will come in without being recognized. Her disguise must be very complete if she could deceive you."

"Indeed, her disguise is complete," replied the tearful old lady.

Dorothy's disguise was so complete and her resemblance to me had been so well contrived that she met with no opposition from the guards in the retainer's room nor from the porter. She walked out upon the terrace where she strolled for a short time. Then she climbed over the wall at the stile back of the terrace and took her way up Bowling Green Hill toward the gate. She sauntered leisurely until she was out of sight of the Hall. Then gathering up her cloak and sword she sped along the steep path to the hill crest and thence to the gate.

Soon after the first day of her imprisonment she had sent a letter to John by the hand of Jennie Faxton, acquainting him with the details of all that had happened. In her letter, among much else, she said:--

"My true love, I beg you to haunt with your presence Bowling Green Gate each day at the hour of sunset. I cannot tell you when I shall be there to meet you, or surely I would do so now. But be there I will. Let no doubt of that disturb your mind. It does not lie in the power of man to keep me from you. That is, it lies in the power of but one man, you, my love and my lord, and I fear not that you will use your power to that end. So it is that I beg you to wait for me at sunset hour each day near by Bowling Green Gate. You may be caused to wait for me a long weary time; but one day, sooner or later, I shall go to you, and then--ah, then, if it be in my power to reward your patience, you shall have no cause for complaint."

When Dorothy reached the gate she found it securely locked. She peered eagerly through the bars, hoping to see John. She tried to shake the heavy iron structure to a.s.sure herself that it could not be opened.

"Ah, well," she sighed, "I suppose the reason love laughs at locksmiths is because he--or she--can climb."

Then she climbed the gate and sprang to the ground on the Devonshire side of the wall.

"What will John think when he sees me in this attire?" she said half aloud. "Malcolm's cloak serves but poorly to cover me, and I shall instead be covered with shame and confusion when John comes. I fear he will think I have disgraced myself." Then, with a sigh, "But necessity knows no raiment."

She strode about near the gate for a few minutes, wishing that she were indeed a man, save for one fact: if she were not a woman, John would not love her, and, above all, she could not love John. The fact that she could and did love John appealed to Dorothy as the highest, sweetest privilege that Heaven or earth could offer to a human being.

The sun had sunk in the west, and his faint parting glory was but dimly to be seen upon a few small clouds that floated above Overhaddon Hill. The moon was past its half; and the stars, still yellow and pale from the lingering glare of day, waited eagerly to give their twinkling help in lighting the night. The forest near the gate was dense, and withal the fading light of the sun and the dawning beams of the moon and stars, deep shadow enveloped Dorothy and all the scene about her. The girl was disappointed when she did not see Manners, but she was not vexed. There was but one person in all the world toward whom she held a patient, humble att.i.tude--John. If he, in his greatness, goodness, and condescension, deigned to come and meet so poor a person as Dorothy Vernon, she would be thankful and happy; if he did not come, she would be sorrowful. His will was her will, and she would come again and again until she should find him waiting for her, and he should stoop to lift her into heaven.

If there is a place in all the earth where red warm blood counts for its full value, it is in a pure woman's veins. Through self-fear it brings to her a proud reserve toward all mankind till the right one comes. Toward him it brings an eager humbleness that is the essence and the life of Heaven and of love. Poets may praise snowy women as they will, but the compelling woman is she of the warm blood. The snowy woman is the lifeless seed, the rainless cloud, the unmagnetic lodestone, the drossful iron. The great laws of nature affect her but pa.s.sively. If there is aught in the saying of the ancients, "The best only in nature can survive," the day of her extermination will come. Fire is as chaste as snow, and infinitely more comforting.

Dorothy's patience was not to be tried for long. Five minutes after she had climbed the gate she beheld John riding toward her from the direction of Rowsley, and her heart beat with thrill upon thrill of joy. She felt that the crowning moment of her life was at hand. By the help of a subtle sense--familiar spirit to her love perhaps--she knew that John would ask her to go with him and to be his wife, despite all the Rutlands and Vernons dead, living, or to be born. The thought of refusing him never entered her mind. Queen Nature was on the throne in the fulness of power, and Dorothy, in perfect attune with her great sovereign, was fulfilling her destiny in accordance with the laws to which her drossless being was entirely amenable.

Many times had the fear come to her that Sir John Manners, who was heir to the great earldom of Rutland,--he who was so great, so good, and so beautiful,--might feel that his duty to his house past, present, and future, and the obligations of his position among the grand n.o.bles of the realm, should deter him from a marriage against which so many good reasons could be urged. But this evening her familiar spirit whispered to her that she need not fear, and her heart was filled with joy and certainty. John dismounted and tethered his horse at a short distance from the gate. He approached Dorothy, but halted when he beheld a man instead of the girl whom he longed to meet. His hesitancy surprised Dorothy, who, in her eagerness, had forgotten her male attire. She soon saw, however, that he did not recognize her, and she determined, in a spirit of mischief, to maintain her incognito till he should penetrate her disguise.

She turned her back on John and sauntered leisurely about, whistling softly. She pretended to be unconscious of his presence, and John, who felt that the field was his by the divine right of love, walked to the gate and looked through the bars toward Bowling Green. He stood at the gate for a short time with indifference in his manner and irritation in his heart. He, too, tried to hum a tune, but failed. Then he tried to whistle, but his musical efforts were abortive. There was no music in him.

A moment before his heart had been full of harmony; but when he found a man instead of his sweetheart, the harmony quickly turned to rasping discord.

John was not a patient man, and his impatience was apt to take the form of words and actions. A little aimless stalking about at the gate was more than enough for him, so he stepped toward the intruder and lifted his hat.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I thought when first I saw you that you were Sir Malcolm Vernon. I fancied you bore resemblance to him. I see that I was in error."

"Yes, in error," answered my beard.

Again the two gentlemen walked around each other with great amus.e.m.e.nt on the part of one, and with ever increasing vexation on the part of the other.

Soon John said, "May I ask whom have I the honor to address?"

"Certainly, you may ask," was the response.