"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 attitude—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 passively. 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 nobles 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.