"You are very pretty," he said at length. "But you are not Ruth."

"No; I am Dorothy Hamblyn," she answered.

He knitted his brows and looked at her intently, then he tried to shake his head.

"Hamblyn?" he questioned slowly. "I hate the Hamblyns--I hate the very name! All except the squire's little maid," and he closed his eyes, and was silent for several moments. Then he went on again--

"I wish I could hate the squire's little maid too, but I can't. I've tried hard, but I can't. She's so pretty, and she's to marry an old man, old enough to be her grandfather. Oh, it's a shame, for he'll break her heart. If I were only a rich man I'd steal her."

"Hush, hush!" she said quickly. "Do you know what you are saying?"

He opened his eyes slowly and looked at her again, but there was no clear light of recognition in them. For several minutes he talked incessantly on all sorts of subjects, but in the end he got back to the question that for the moment seemed to dominate all the rest.

"You can't be the squire's little maid," he said, "for she is going to marry an old man. Don't you think it is a sin?"

"Hush, hush!" she said, in a whisper.

"I think it's a sin," he went on. "And if I were rich and strong I wouldn't allow it. I wish she were poor, and lived in a cottage; then I would work and work, and wait and hope, and--and----"

"Yes?" she questioned.

"We would fight the world together," he said, after a long pause.

She did not reply, but a mist came up before her eyes and blotted out the surrounding belt of trees, and the noise of the wind seemed to die suddenly away into silence, and a new world opened up before her--a land where springtime always dwelt, and beauty never grew old.

Ralph lay quite still, with his head upon her lap. He appeared to have relapsed into unconsciousness again.

She brushed her hand across her eyes at length and looked at him, and as she did so her heart fluttered strangely and uncomfortably in her bosom.

A curious spell seemed to be upon her. Her nerves thrilled with an altogether new sensation. She grew almost frightened, and yet she had no desire to break the spell; the pleasure infinitely exceeded the pain.

She felt like one who had strayed unconsciously into forbidden ground, and yet the landscape was so beautiful, and the fragrance of the flowers was so sweet, and the air was so soft and cool, and the music of the birds and the streams was so delicious, that she had neither the courage nor the inclination to go away.

She did not try to a.n.a.lyse this new sensation that thrilled her to the finger-tips. She did not know what it meant, or what it portended.

She took her pocket-handkerchief at length and began to wipe the bloodstains from Ralph's face, and while she did so the warm colour mounted to her own cheeks.

There was no denying that he was very handsome, and she had already had proof of his character. She recalled the day when she lay in his strong arms, with her head upon his shoulder, and he carried her all the way down to the cross roads. How strange that she should be performing a similar service for him now! Was some blind, unthinking fate weaving the threads of their separate lives into the same piece?

The colour deepened in her cheeks until they grew almost crimson. The words to which she had just listened from his lips seemed to flash upon her consciousness with a new meaning, and she found herself wondering what would happen if she had been only a peasant's child.

A minute or two later the sound of wheels was heard on the gra.s.s-grown road. Ralph turned his head uneasily, and muttered something under his breath.

"Help is near," she whispered. "The doctor is coming."

He looked up into her eyes wonderingly.

"Don't tell the squire's little maid that I love her," he said slowly.

"I've tried to hate her, but I cannot."

She gave a little gasp, and tried to speak, but a lump rose in her throat which threatened to choke her.

"But her father," he went on slowly, "he's a--a----" but he did not finish the sentence.

When the doctor reached his side he was quite unconscious again.

CHAPTER XII

DOROTHY SPEAKS HER MIND

Dorothy--to quote her father's words--had taken the bit between her teeth and bolted. The squire had coaxed her, cajoled her, threatened her, got angry with her, but all to no purpose. She stood before him resolute and defiant, vowing that she would sooner die than marry Lord Probus.

Sir John was at his wits' end. He saw his brightest hopes dissolving before his eyes. If Dorothy carried out her threat, and refused to marry the millionaire brewer, what was to become of him? All his hopes of extricating himself from his present pecuniary embarra.s.sments were centred in his lordship. But if Dorothy deliberately broke the engagement, Lord Probus would see him starve before raising a finger to help him.

Fortunately, Lord Probus was in London, and knew nothing of Dorothy's change of front. He had thought her somewhat cool when he went away, but that he attributed to her long illness. Warmth of affection would no doubt return with returning health and strength. Sir John had a.s.sured him that she had not changed towards him in the least.

Dorothy's illness had been a great disappointment to both men. All delays were dangerous, and there was always the off-chance that Dorothy might awake from her girlish day-dream and discover that not only her feeling toward Lord Probus, but also her views of matrimony, had undergone an entire change.

Sir John had received warning of the change on that stormy day when Ralph Penlogan had visited him to tell him that his father was dead. But he had put her words out of his mind as quickly as possible. Whatever else they might mean, he could not bring himself to believe that Dorothy would deliberately break a sacred and solemn pledge.

But a few weeks later matters came to a head. It was on Dorothy's return from a visit to the Penlogans' cottage at St. Goram that the truth came out.

Sir John met her crossing the hall with a basket on her arm.

"Where have you been all the afternoon?" he questioned sharply.

"I have been to see poor Mrs. Penlogan," she said, "who is anything but well."

"It seems to me you are very fond of visiting the Penlogans," he said crossly. "I suppose that lazy son is still hanging on to his mother, doing nothing?"

"I don't think you ought to say he is lazy," she said, flushing slightly. "He has been to St. Ivel Mine to-day to try to get work, though Dr. Barrow says he ought not to think of working for another month."

"Dr. Barrow is an old woman in some things," he retorted.

"I think he is a very clever man," she answered; "and we ought to be grateful for what he did for me."

"Oh, that is quite another matter. But I suppose you found the Penlogans full of abuse still of the ground landlord?"

"No, I did not," she answered. "Lord St. Goram's name was never mentioned."

"Oh!" he said shortly, and turned on his heel and walked away.

"She evidently doesn't know yet that I'm the ground landlord," he reflected. "I wonder what she will say when she does know? I've half a mind to tell her myself and face it out. If I thought it would prevent her going to the Penlogans' cottage, I would tell her, too. Curse them!

They've scored off me by not telling the girl." And he closed the library door behind him and dropped into an easy-chair.