“Sure we shall have rain again to-morrow,” says Dorothy, looking at the sunset.
“Your prophecy of a fair afternoon is come true, cousin,” says I. “But now that we are again arrived upon the same theme, perhaps you’ll be so kind as to vouchsafe to resolve the mystery beneath which I am labouring. I think you must perceive, cousin, that I am anxious to assure your happiness, so far as lies in my power, but this I can’t do without you tell me your servant’s name.”
“Will you assure me, upon your word and honour, that you can’t imagine it, cousin?” says she, looking at me very hard.
“Upon my word and honour, cousin, I han’t the slightest hint on’t,” says I, and was surprised to see Dorothy laugh, though her eyes were full of tears.
“Was ever man so blind?” she said, “and was ever poor woman in so hard case? Oh, Cousin Ned, I am afraid to entrust my secret to you, you are so prodigious dull concerning it. You would have me use you pitifully, you say, but how are you using me, in forcing me through pity to disclose to you so delicate a matter? Sure you must promise me that should you afterward repent of this day’s work you’ll bear me out that ’twas undertook at your earnest entreaty, and not through any forwardness of mine. Have you thought me forward, cousin?”
“Never!” says I. “The very strictest prude is forward in comparison with you, cousin.”
“That relieves my conscience,” says she. “Now, must I needs tell it, Ned? But no,” she stopped, and I saw her lips was all trembling, “I can’t tell it abroad here. The birds might chance to hear it, or the herbs in the borders,—who knows? Come with me into the oaken gallery. Maybe I can speak there easier.”
So we two come into the gallery by the outside stair (the same whereby my grandfather had once escaped from a band of Roundhead soldiers sent for to apprehend him), and Dorothy did lead the way to the further end on’t, until we come opposite to the pictures of her parents, and the spot where we had once stood together near one-and-twenty years before. She went and stood between the portraits, needing now no chair to bring her pale face (whereon the light of the sunset did shine through the window) to a level with the painted faces on the wall behind her,—faces superior to hers neither in the beauty nor in the courage depicted therein.
“Ned,” says she, fixing her eyes upon me, “methinks I can tell you my tale easier here than elsewhere. More than twenty years ago, my servant and I met in this place, and he passed me his word to return and marry me if certain conditions that he imposed were fulfilled. I can’t tell whether they be fulfilled or no,—so far as I might, I have strove to carry ’em out, and if I han’t succeeded, prythee blame my power or my wit, and not my will. I wan’t loath to wait for my servant, even though ’twere for many years, for I loved him, and I was often wont to steal away hither, and repeat with myself that discourse I had with him, desiring naught so much as his return and approbation. But for that, Ned, I have waited twenty years.”
“Dorothy!” I cried in an agony, “spare me this recital, though I grant you ’tis well deserved. Consider how much more I am tried in losing you, than you in failing of me,—you, moreover, that have your favoured servant to supply my place. Why torture me with the remembrance that hath already near drove me mad, instead of ending the business that brought us here? For pity’s sake, tell me this gentleman’s name.”