"Yes." The word came so faintly as scarcely to be audible.

"When are you going to open your heart to me? Don't you love nor trust me any longer?"

"Oh, Mary, you know I do, and always have." The girl said this with something of her old impulsiveness, and pressed Mary's hands almost convulsively.

"Then will you not tell me, dear?" said Mary coaxingly, bending to kiss the troubled face.

There was silence, broken only by the crackling of the burning wood and the sputtering of the sap from the logs.

Dorothy drew a long breath, as though she had done away with wavering, and was now resolved to speak.

"Yes, I will," she answered. "But remember, Mary," and she seemed filled with fear again, "you can tell no one,--no living person,--not even Jack. At least not yet. You will promise me this?"

"Has it aught to do with that ring?" asked Mary, before committing herself.

"What ring?" Dorothy's eyes opened wide, and she spoke sharply.

"Don't you remember the ring you gave me when you were so ill, and told me to keep for you,--a man's ring, with a ruby set in it?"

"No." She said it vaguely, wonderingly, as if dreaming. Then she cried in terror, "Oh, Mary, you did not show it to Jack, nor tell him or my father of the matter?"

"No, my dear," Mary answered with an a.s.suring smile. "I waited until you were well enough to tell me more, or else tell them yourself."

"Good Mary,--good, true sister." And Dorothy pressed her lips to the hand she clasped.

"But the matter has given me such a heartache, Dot, for I feared I might be doing wrong. Surely no one can love you more than your own father and brother. Why not tell them, as well as me, of--whatever it is?"

"I will, Mary," Dorothy said resolutely. "I intended to, all the time.

But not yet, not yet. I want to tell you, first of all, and see if you can think what is best to be done. And," with a little shudder, "I thought I had lost the ring; and the first day I was able to slip out of doors, I hunted for it where I got off the horse that night. Oh, that dreadful night!" She almost cried out the words as the sharpness of awakened sorrow came to her.

"Come, Dot," Mary urged, "tell me. I'll promise to keep silent until you bid me speak." She knew they were losing precious time, for her husband would not be long gone, having promised to return in order that she might go down for her own supper.

Dorothy hesitated no longer, but, in the fewest possible words, unburdened her heart, while Mary listened in speechless amazement.

Her indignation and horror grew apace until the story was all told.

Then she cried: "It was a cowardly, unmanly trick,--a traitor's deed!

He is no gentleman, with all his fine pretence of manners."

"Ah--but he is." And Dorothy sighed softly, and in a way to have opened Mary's eyes, had she been less absorbed by the anger now controlling her.

"By birth, mayhap," she admitted, although reluctantly; then adding fiercely, "he surely is not one in his acts."

Then her voice grew gentle again, and the tears seemed to be near, as she laid her head alongside the curly one upon the pillow.

"Oh, my poor, poor little Dot," she said; "to think of the dreadful thing you have been carrying in your mind all this time! Small wonder that you were pale and sad,--it was enough to kill you."

The words brought Dorothy's grief to her once more. Then Mary broke down as well, and the two wept together, their heads touching each other on the pillow.

"And now whatever is to be done?" Mary said, as soon as her calmness returned,--a calmness filled with indignation and resentment. "Since this man is surely your husband, you must needs obey him, I suppose, if he insists upon it. And now that he is going away, it would seem natural for him to come here, despite his promise to wait until he was asked. And I should say he would be quite sure to demand that you go away with him. And," almost in terror, "for your father to hear of it for the first time in such a fashion, and from him!"

"Oh, Mary, don't talk in that way!" cried Dorothy, in affright, and clinging still closer to her.

"But never you fear, Dot," Mary said more encouragingly, "so long as Jack is here to look after you. That man will never dare seek to drag you from your father's house while Jack is about. And besides, the townspeople would never permit him to leave the place alive, should he attempt such a thing."

"I won't go--I'll never go!" Dorothy exclaimed pa.s.sionately. "But--"

Her voice took a different note, and she stopped.

"But--what?" asked Mary instantly, for she heard her husband's footsteps on the uncarpeted staircase.

"I don't want any harm to befall him," was the tremulous answer.

"Oh, Dot," Mary began in dismay, "can it be possible that, after all, you--"

But Dorothy interrupted her.

"Hush!" she whispered, "here comes Jack." Then beseechingly, "Oh, Mary, say once more that you'll not tell him yet."

But her husband was already in the room, and all Mary could do was to press Dorothy's hand.

A little later in the evening all the members of the family were again in the drawing-room. Dorothy, in order to relieve their anxiety, and especially on her father's account, had joined them; and the girl now made greater efforts than ever before to appear like herself.

This was now easier for her, from having shared her burdensome secret with Mary, who seemed to have taken upon her shoulders a good part of the troublesome load.

She carried herself with a much quieter mien than usual, but in a way not to excite comment, save when her husband said to her as they were closing the shutters to keep out the night and make the room still more cosey, "What is it, sweetheart,--are you troubled over Dot?"

"Yes," she replied, thankful that she could answer so truthfully.

"The child is going to be as she should, I am sure," he said, glancing over his shoulder to where his sister was sitting, close beside her father, her head resting against his shoulder. She was smiling at something Aunt Lettice had been telling of 'Bitha, whom she had just been putting to bed.

Before Mary could say anything more, a sudden clatter of hoofs outside announced the arrival of hors.e.m.e.n, and a minute later the sounding of the heavy bra.s.s knocker echoed through the hall.

Dorothy and Mary looked at each other in alarm, the same intuition making them fear what this might portend.

"Whatever can it be at this hour!" exclaimed Joseph Devereux, as his son went to answer the noisy summons. "I hope nothing is wrong in the town."

There came the sound of men's voices, low at first, but soon growing louder, and then almost menacing, as the outer door was sharply closed.

"And I say, sirrah,"--it was the voice of John Devereux--"that you cannot see her."

Dorothy sprang from her father's side and sped to the door, which she flung wide open, and stood, with widening eyes and pale cheeks, upon the threshold. A moment more, and Mary was alongside her; and then, his face filled with amazement and anger, Joseph Devereux followed them.

Standing with his back against the closed door, was a stalwart young dragoon, his red uniform making a ruddy gleam in the dimly lit hall as he angrily confronted the son of the house.

But no sooner did he catch sight of the small figure in the open doorway than the anger left his face, and he stood before her with uncovered head, paying no more heed to the others than if they had been part of the furniture in the hall.

"Sweet Mistress Dorothy," he said,--and his eyes searched her face with a pa.s.sionate inquiry--"we are ordered away, as you may have heard. I am leaving the town to-night, and could not go until I had seen you once more."

The eyes looking up into his were filled with many emotions, but Dorothy made no reply.