The doors were open, and we heard all that was said by Dorothy and Tom. Madge grasped my hand in surprise and fear.
"Please, John," said Dorothy, "if it gives me pleasure to be your servant, you should not wish to deny me. There lives but one person whom I would serve. There, John, I will give you another, and you shall let me do as I will."
Dorothy, still holding the fagot in her hands, pressed it against John's breast and gently pushed him backward toward a large armchair, in which she had been sitting by the west side of the fireplace.
"You sit there, John, and we will make believe that this is our house, and that you have just come in very cold from a ride, and that I am making a fine fire to warm you. Isn't it pleasant, John? There, you sit and warm yourself—my—my—husband," she said laughingly. "It is fine sport even to play at. There is one fagot on the fire," she said, as she threw the wood upon the embers, causing them to fly in all directions. John started up to brush the scattered embers back into the fireplace, but Dorothy stopped him.
"I will put them all back," she said. "You know you are cold and very tired. You have been overseeing the tenantry and have been hunting. Will you have a bowl of punch, my—my husband?" and she laughed again and kissed him as she passed to the holder for another fagot.
"I much prefer that to punch," said John, laughing softly. "Have you more?"
"Thousands of them, John, thousands of them." She rippled forth a little laugh and continued: "I occupy my time nowadays in making them that I may always have a great supply when we are—that is, you know, when you—when the time comes that you may require a great many to keep you in good humor." Again came the laugh, merry and clear as the tinkle of sterling silver.
She laughed again within a minute or two; but when the second laugh came, it sounded like a knell.
Dorothy delighted to be dressed in the latest fashion. Upon this occasion she wore a skirt vast in width, of a pattern then much in vogue. The sleeves also were preposterously large, in accordance with the custom of the times. About her neck a beautiful white linen ruff stood out at least the eighth part of an ell. The day had been damp and cold, and the room in which she had been sitting was chilly. For that reason, most fortunately, she had thrown over her shoulders a wide sable cloak broad enough to enfold her many times and long enough to reach nearly to her knees: Dorothy thus arrayed was standing in front of John's chair. She had just spoken the words "good humor," when the door leading to her father's room opened and in walked Sir George. She and her ample skirts and broad sleeves were between John and the door. Not one brief instant did Dorothy waste in thought. Had she paused to put in motion the machinery of reason, John would have been lost. Thomas sitting in Lady Crawford's chair and Dorothy standing beside him would have told Sir George all he needed to know. He might not have discovered John's identity, but a rope and a tree in Bowling Green would quickly have closed the chapter of Dorothy's mysterious love affair. Dorothy, however, did not stop to reason nor to think. She simply acted without preliminary thought, as the rose unfolds or as the lightning strikes. She quietly sat down upon John's knees, leaned closely back against him, spread out the ample folds of her skirt, threw the lower parts of her broad cape over her shoulders and across the back of the chair, and Sir John Manners was invisible to mortal eyes.
"Come in, father," said Dorothy, in dulcet tones that should have betrayed her.