Dorothy was so still that instinctively Mrs. Gordon bent close over her and listened; but she heard quite plainly the soft pant of her breath, and knew she had not fainted.
Mrs. Gordon straightened herself and looked at her. It was strange how that delicate, girlish form under the soft flow of fair locks and muslin draperies should express, in all its half-suggested curves, such utter obstinacy that it might have been the passive unresponsiveness of marble. Even that soft tumult of agitated breath could not alter that impression. When Mrs. Gordon spoke again her words seemed to echo back in her own ears, as if she had spoken in an empty room.
“Dorothy Fair,” said she, with a kind of solemn authority, “neither I nor any other human being can look into your heart and see why you do this; and you owe it to my son, who has your solemn promise, and to your father, whose only child you are, to speak. If you are sick, say so; if at the last minute you have a doubt as to your affection for Burr, say so. My son will keep his promise to you with his life, but he will not force himself upon you against your wishes. You need fear nothing; but you must either speak and give us your reason for this, or get up and put on your wedding-veil and your shoes, and come down, where they have been waiting over an hour. You cannot put such a slight upon my son, or your father, or all these people, any longer. You do not think what you are doing, Dorothy.”
Mrs. Gordon's even, weighty voice softened to motherly appeal in the closing words. Dorothy remained quite silent and motionless. Then Burr gave a great sigh of impatient misery, and strode across to Dorothy, and bent low over her, touching her curls with his lips, and whispered. She did not stir. “Won't you, Dorothy?” he said, gently, then quite aloud; and then again, “Have you forgotten what you promised me, Dorothy?” and still again, “Are you sick? Have I offended you in any way? Can't you tell me, Dorothy?”
At length, when Dorothy persisted in her silence, he stood back from her and spoke with his head proudly raised. “I will say no more,” he said; “I have come here to keep my solemn promise, and be married to you, and here I will remain until you or your father bid me go, with something more than silence. That may be enough for my pride, but 'tis not enough for my honor. I will go back to your father's study, Dorothy, and wait there until you speak and tell me what you wish.”
Burr turned to go, but Parson Fair thrust out his arm before him to stop him, and himself came forward and grasped Dorothy, with hardly a gentle hand, by a slender arm. “Daughter,” said Parson Fair in a voice which Dorothy had never heard from his lips except when he addressed wayward sinners from the pulpit, “I command you to stop this folly; stand up and finish dressing yourself, and go down-stairs and fulfil your promise to this man whom you have chosen.” The black woman pressed forward, then stood back at a glance from her master's blue eyes.
Dorothy did not stir; then her father spoke again, and his nervous hand tightened on her arm. “Dorothy,” said he, “I command you to rise”—and there was a great authority of fatherhood and priesthood in his voice, and even Dorothy was moved before it to respond, though not to yielding.
Suddenly she jerked her arm away from her father's grasp, and stood up, with a convulsive flutter of her white plumage like a bird. She flung back her curls and disclosed her beautiful pale face, all strained to terrified resolve, and her dilated blue eyes “I will not!” she cried out, addressing her father alone, “I will not, father. I have made up my mind that I will not.”
Then, as Parson Fair said not a word, only looked at her with stern questioning, she went on, shrill and fast, “I will not; no, I will not! Nobody can make me! I thought I would, I thought I must, until this last. Now when it comes to this, I can do no more. I will not, father.”
“Why?” said Parson Fair.