"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.