Sidney took care to dine at the village inn, where the fare was better than at the Manor, and it was late in the afternoon before he returned. Dorothy had gone out on the moors, and the dogs were yelping and baying in the stable-yard, making their cries resound far and near, as if they resented being left behind. John pointed out the path Dorothy had taken, and he followed it till it became a scarcely perceptible track among the heather. It was an intense enjoyment to him to be up here in the bracing air, with miles upon miles of uplands stretching on every hand as far as he could see, with little lonely tarns lying in the hollows, and gray rocks, half covered with moss, scattered among the purple heather. He regretted that he had ever let Brackenburn Manor, and had not kept it as a summer resort for Margaret and the boys. How they would have enjoyed its wildness and solitude! but now their boyhood was over. Still he would bring Margaret here next summer, and they would have long rambles together, such as they had never had before.
He caught sight of Dorothy at last, her slight girlish figure standing out clearly against the sky, as she stood on a ridge of rising ground. As his footsteps drew nearer to her, the dried heather crackling under his tread, there was a flutter of birds all around her, flying away hither and thither, and he fancied he heard the scuttering of little wild creatures through the ling and brushwood. He saw her face was bathed in tears as he came up to her.
"I have bid them all good-by," she said, "and I think they understand. And I'm saying good-by to the moors all the time in my heart. It can never be the same again; for they die soon—the poor little birds and the wild things—and their young ones will not know me if I go away; and they'll be afraid of me and fancy I mean to hurt them or catch them. I'm very glad to go and live with you anywhere, but I love the moors and the sky, and the living creatures; and I cannot go away from them without crying."
"But we shall come again," he said; "the Manor is mine; and we are coming next winter to fix on a site for building a new house for my son Philip. You shall help to choose it, Dorothy. Who could choose it better?"
As he spoke the thought flashed across his brain, why should not Philip marry this charming girl with her large fortune? After three years' companionship with Margaret she would be all he could wish in his future daughter-in-law. She had won his heart already, and she would make his and Margaret's old age as happy as their middle life had been. Nothing could be better than that Dorothy should marry Philip and live here, in the birthplace she loved so much, for the best part of every year.
"Who is Philip!" asked Dorothy.
"One of my boys," he answered. "I have two of them, Philip and Hugh."
"I never spoke to any boys," she said in a troubled tone.
"It is time you did," he replied, laughing heartily. "What sort of a world have you lived in? Philip is heir to this estate and will live for a time in the Manor. Here are my boys' photographs for you to see, and my wife's, too."
He put into her hands a morocco case containing the three portraits, and Dorothy scrutinized them with intent eagerness. But she had never seen photographs, and their want of color disappointed her. She gave them back to Sidney with a faint smile.