“Cousin,” says I, “your are unjust toward me. I desire naught save your honour and advantage,” but she would not vouchsafe neither to answer me nor speak to me, and we came home in silence. And all that evening would she scarce say a word to me, nor even look at me. And though you would think that I should rejoice in this, inasmuch as ’twould enable me the more easily to conquer my love for her, yet it wan’t so, but I must needs offer all the courtesies in my power, and follow her with my eyes, silently demanding pardon for my unwitting offending of her. But all this moved her not a whit, so that I went to bed very unhappy, but loving her more than ever.
And the next day, which was prodigious wet and stormy, Dorothy busied herself all the morning with the maids up-stairs, scrubbing and cleaning and doing other such things, and raising such a noise and dust as that she was fain at dinner-time to abide in her own chamber, saying that she was attacked with a fit of the megrims.[137] And after dinner, the weather mending somewhat, I rid out after my usual fashion, with Loll Duss behind me, very unhappy by reason of the damp, and I much more unhappy, by reason of the turmoil in my mind. But coming in after dark, prodigious weary and miserable, I found an agreeable surprise to await me, for casting myself with a sigh upon the oaken settle beside the great fire in the hall, thinking no one to be near me, I did behold Dorothy sitting opposite to me in the shadow, when my eyes grew accustomed to the light.
“You han’t been abroad to-day, cousin?” said I.
“No,” said she. “Mrs Skipwith is gone to drink a dish of thea with Mrs Sternhold, and Miles is attending upon her.”
“I’ll wait upon you with pleasure, cousin, whithersoever you may desire,” says I, “and esteem it an honour if you’ll accept of my services.”
“I thank you, cousin,” says she, “but I han’t no list to walk abroad to-night.”
And with that we were silent again, I watching Dorothy curiously when the firelight revealed her face to me, and wondering whether I might now trust myself to ask her concerning her servant. But on a sudden my eyes lit upon a certain great old book in a brown binding that lay beside her on the settle, half hid by her gown, and stretching out my hand I took it up.
“Why, here is the ‘Arcadia’!” says I, undoing the silver clasps. “Have you been diverting yourself with the pretty fancies of the gentle knight, cousin?”
“I chanced upon the old book up-stairs this morning,” says she, “and brought it hither for to recall old days withal.”
“Suffer me also to recall ’em,” says I, and opening the book, sought out that pathetical piece of the parting of Argalus and Parthenia, over the which we had so often mingled our tears when we was children, and thereafter the moving scene wherein Parthenia is slain by Amphialus, the which did draw tears from Dorothy even now. And as for me, I found it hard to read, for the remembrance of the early days was so strong upon me that I conceived a double meaning in all the words, seeing Dorothy in Parthenia when she cries to Argalus, saying, Woe is me; what shall become of me, if you thus abandon me? And in this I wan’t alone, for I perceived that my cousin was much moved by those other words of Parthenia—viz., O Life, O Death, answer for me, that my thoughts have not so much as in a dreame tasted any comfort since they were depriv’d of Argalus. “Sure,” says I to myself, “I am a worse murderer than ever was Amphialus, and should experience a greater remorse, since I have slain that sweet love and confidence that my cousin once reposed in me.” But this was when I had ended my reading, and Dorothy was wiping away her tears.