"Quite, quite, my son," and the old man grasped his hand warmly. A slight sound, like a suppressed sob, broke the stillness of the great hall. Gilbert looked round. Dorothy stood firm and erect behind his father's chair, her right hand grasping the frame, her large eyes wide open and fixed on vacancy, her features rigid, her face as white as that of a stone statue.
His heart smote him. He knew the purity of her motives, he saw how she suffered, but his pride and vanity were alike wounded;—he would not yield an inch—he would punish her for the decided manner in which she had rejected his offer. He did not doubt her love, but in that evil mood he had ceased to love her himself.
"Gilbert, I am glad you acknowledge the folly of your conduct," said the farmer, breaking the painful silence. "When you don't see the girl, you will soon forget her, take my word for it. Out of sight out of mind. There's much truth in those old proverbs."
Gilbert again glanced up at Dorothy, to see how this speech affected her.
She was no longer in the room.
A few minutes later, the tramp of a horse's hoofs sounded on the pavement of the court-yard. Dorothy had sought refuge in her own chamber from a scene she was no longer able to endure. She had sunk down beside the bed, her head was buried in the pillow; she was sobbing wildly. That sound broke painfully upon her ear—it was the climax of her agony. She started to her feet. She sprang to the window, and flung wide the casement, stretching out her arms with a despairing gesture, as she caught a glimpse of Gilbert's retreating figure.
"Gilly, Gilly!" she cried, "come back and speak to me. Tell me that we do not part in anger. That you will forgive your poor broken-hearted Dolly!"
The gate swung back on its hinges—the figure had vanished into the night.
"He is gone—he does not hear me," sobbed the distracted girl. "I shall never, never see him again."
She threw herself on the floor, and prayed that God would end her life—that she might die in the old house and never see the light of another day. This was her first great life-trial. She had tried to bear up against it, to submit with patience to her bitter grief, but her fortitude had all deserted her now, and she wept with such an abandonment of sorrow, as if her whole being would dissolve in tears.