Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major

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Dorothy paused, and her heart beat with a quickened throb while she
awaited his reply. A new field of discovery was opening up to her and a
new use for her disguise.

John made no reply, but the persistent girl pursued her new line of
attack.

[Illustration]

"Surely Sir John Manners has had many sweethearts," said Dorothy, in
flattering tones. There were rocks and shoals ahead for John's love barge.
"Many, many, I am sure," the girl persisted.

"Ah, a few, a few, I admit," John like a fool replied. Dorothy was
accumulating disagreeable information rapidly.

"While you were at London court," said she, "the fine ladies must have
sought you in great numbers--I am sure they did."

"Perhaps, oh, perhaps," returned John. "One cannot always remember such
affairs." His craft was headed for the rocks. Had he observed Dorothy's
face, he would have seen the storm a-brewing.

"To how many women, Sir John, have you lost your heart, and at various
times how many have lost their hearts to you?" asked the persistent
girl.--"What a senseless question," returned John. "A dozen times or more;
perhaps a score or two score times. I cannot tell the exact number. I did
not keep an account."

Dorothy did not know whether she wanted to weep or be angry. Pique and a
flash of temper, however, saved her from tears, and she said, "You are so
brave and handsome that you must have found it a very easy task--much
easier than it would be for me--to convince those confiding ones of your
affection?"

"Yes," replied John, plunging full sail upon the breakers, "I admit that
usually they have been quite easy to convince. I am naturally bold, and I
suppose that perhaps--that is, I may possibly have a persuasive trick
about me."

Shades of good men who have blundered into ruin over the path of petty
vanity, save this man! But no, Dorothy must drink the bitter cup of
knowledge to the dregs.

"And you have been false to all of these women? she said.

"Ah, well, you know--the devil take it! A man can't be true to a score of
women," replied John.

"I am sure none of them wished you to be true," the girl answered,
restraining her tears with great difficulty.

At that point in the conversation John began to suspect from the manner
and shapeliness of his companion that a woman had disguised herself in
man's attire. Yet it did not once occur to him that Dorothy's fair form
was concealed within the disguise. He attempted to lift my soft beaver
hat, the broad rim of which hid Dorothy's face, but to that she made a
decided objection, and John continued: "By my soul I believe you are a
woman. Your walk"--Dorothy thought she had been swaggering like a
veritable swash-buckler--"your voice, the curves of your form, all betray
you." Dorothy gathered the cloak closely about her.

"I would know more of you," said John, and he stepped toward the now
interesting stranger. But she drew away from him, and told him to keep
hands off.

"Oh, I am right. You are a woman," said John.

Dorothy had maintained the disguise longer than she wished, and was
willing that John should discover her identity. At first it had been rare
sport to dupe him; but the latter part of her conversation had given her
no pleasure. She was angry, jealous, and hurt by what she had learned.

"Yes," she answered, "I admit that I am a--a woman. Now I must go."

"Stay but one moment," pleaded John, whose curiosity and gallantry were
aroused. "I will watch for Mistress Vernon, and when she appears, then you
may go."

"I told you that you would want me to remain," said the girl with a sigh.
She was almost ready to weep. Then she thought: "I little dreamed I was
coming here for this. I will carry the disguise a little farther, and
will, perhaps, learn enough to--to break my heart."

She was soon to learn all she wanted to know and a great deal more.

"Come sit by me on this stone," said John, coaxingly. The girl complied,
and drew the cloak over her knees.

"Tell me why you are here," he asked.

"To meet a gentleman," she replied, with low-bent face.

"Tell me your name," John asked, as he drew my glove from her passive
hand. John held the hand in his, and after examining it in the dim light
saw that it was a great deal more than good to look upon. Then he lifted
it to his lips and said:

"Since our sweethearts have disappointed us, may we not console ourselves
with each other?" He placed his arm around the girl's waist and drew her
yielding form toward him. Dorothy, unobserved by John, removed the false
beard and moustachio, and when John put his arm about her waist and leaned
forward to kiss the fair accommodating neighbor she could restrain her
tears no longer and said:--

"That would be no consolation for me, John; that would be no consolation
for me. How can you? How can you?"

She rose to her feet and covered her face with her hands in a paroxysm of
weeping. John, too, sprang to his feet, you may be sure. "Dorothy! God
help me! I am the king of fools. Curse this hour in which I have thrown
away my heaven. You must hate and despise me, fool, fool that I am."

John knew that it were worse than useless for him to attempt an
explanation. The first thought that flashed through his mind was, to tell
the girl that he had only pretended not to know her. He thought he would
try to make her believe that he had been turning her trick upon herself;
but he was wise in his day and generation, and did not seek refuge in that
falsehood.

The girl would never have forgiven him for that.

"The only amends I can make," he said, in very dolefulness, "is that I may
never let you see my face again."

"That will not help matters," sobbed Dorothy.

"I know it will not," returned John. "Nothing can help me. I can remain
here no longer. I must leave you. I cannot even ask you to say farewell.
Mistress Vernon, you do not despise me half so bitterly as I despise
myself."

Dorothy was one of those rare natures to whom love comes but once. It had
come to her and had engulfed her whole being. To part with it would be
like parting with life itself. It was her tyrant, her master. It was her
ego. She could no more throw it off than she could expel herself from her
own existence. All this she knew full well, for she had analyzed her
conditions, and her reason had joined with all her other faculties in
giving her a clear concept of the truth. She knew she belonged to John
Manners for life and for eternity. She also knew that the chance of seeing
him soon again was very slight, and to part from him now in aught but
kindness would almost kill her.

Before John had recognized Dorothy he certainly had acted like a fool, but
with the shock of recognition came wisdom. All the learning of the
ancients and all the cunning of the prince of darkness could not have
taught him a wiser word with which to make his peace, "I may never let you
see my face again." That was more to be feared by Dorothy than even John's
inconstancy.

Her heart was full of trouble. "I do not know what I wish," she said
simply. "Give me a little time to think."

John's heart leaped with joy, but he remained silent.

Dorothy continued: "Oh, that I had remained at home. I would to God I had
never seen Derby-town nor you."

John in the fulness of his wisdom did not interrupt her.

"To think that I have thus made a fool of myself about a man who has
given his heart to a score of women."

"This is torture," moaned John, in real pain.

"But," continued Dorothy, "I could not remain away from this place when I
had the opportunity to come to you. I felt that I must come. I felt that I
should die if I did not. And you are so false. I wish I were dead. A
moment ago, had I been another woman, you would have kissed her. You
thought I was another woman."

John's wisdom stood by him nobly. He knew he could neither explain
successfully nor beg forgiveness. He simply said: "I cannot remain and
look you in the face. If I dare make any request, it is that despite all
you have heard from my lips you will still believe that I love you, and
that in all my life I have never loved any one so dearly. There is no
other woman for me."

"You doubtless spoke the same false words to the other two score women,"
said Dorothy. Tears and sobs were playing sad havoc with her powers of
speech.

"Farewell, Mistress Vernon," replied John. "I should be shameless if I
dared ask you to believe any word I can utter. Forget, if possible, that I
ever existed; forget me that you may not despise me. I am unworthy to
dwell even in the smallest of your thoughts. I am altogether base and
contemptible."

"N-o-o," sighed Dorothy, poutingly, while she bent low her head and toyed
with the gold lace of my cloak.

"Farewell," said John. He took a step or two backward from her.

"You are over-eager to leave, it seems to me," said the girl in an injured
tone. "I wonder that you came at all." John's heart was singing hosanna.
He, however, maintained his voice at a mournful pitch and said: "I must
go. I can no longer endure to remain." While he spoke he moved toward his
horse, and his head was bowed with real shame as he thought of the
pitiable fool he had made of himself. Dorothy saw him going from her, and
she called to him softly and reluctantly, "John."

He did not hear her, or perhaps he thought best to pretend that he did not
hear, and as he moved from her the girl became desperate. Modesty,
resentment, insulted womanhood and injured pride were all swept away by
the stream of her mighty love, and she cried again, this time without
hesitancy or reluctance, "John, John." She started to run toward him, but
my cloak was in her way, and the sword tripped her feet. In her fear lest
John might leave her, she unclasped the sword-belt from her waist and
snatched the cloak from her shoulders. Freed from these hindrances, she
ran toward John.

"John, do not leave me. Do not leave me." As she spoke, she reached an
open space among the trees and John turned toward her. Her hat had fallen
off, and the red golden threads of her hair, freed from their fastenings,
streamed behind her. Never before had a vision of such exquisite
loveliness sped through the moonbeams. So entrancing was her beauty to
John that he stood motionless in admiration. He did not go to meet her as
he should have done, and perhaps as he would have done had his senses not
been wrapped in benumbing wonderment. His eyes were unable to interpret to
his brain all her marvellous beauty, and his other senses abandoning their
proper functions had hastened to the assistance of his sight He saw, he
heard, he felt her loveliness. Thus occupied he did not move, so Dorothy
ran to him and fell upon his breast.

"You did not come to meet me," she sobbed. "You made me come all the way,
to forgive you. Cruel, cruel!"

John held the girl in his arms, but he did not dare to kiss her, and his
self-denial soon brought its reward. He had not expected that she would
come a beggar to him. The most he had dared to hope was that she would
listen to his prayer for forgiveness. With all his worldly wisdom John had
not learned the fact that inconstancy does not destroy love in the one who
suffers by reason of it; nor did he know of the exquisite pain-touched
happiness which comes to a gentle, passionate heart such as Dorothy's from
the mere act of forgiving.

"Is it possible you can forgive me for the miserable lies I have uttered?"
asked John, almost unconscious of the words he was speaking. "Is it
possible you can forgive me for uttering those lies, Dorothy?" he
repeated.

She laid her head upon his breast, and softly passing her hand over the
lace of his doublet, whispered:--

"If I could believe they were lies, I could easily forgive you," she
answered between low sobs and soft sighs. Though she was a woman, the
sweet essence of childhood was in her heart.

"But you cannot believe me, even when I tell you that I spoke not the
truth," answered John, with growing faith in his system of passive
repentance. Again came the sighs, and a few struggling, childish sobs.

"It is easy for us to believe that which we long to believe," she said.
Then she turned her face upward to him, and John's reward was altogether
disproportioned to the self-denial he had exercised a few minutes before.
She rewarded him far beyond his deserts; and after a pause she said
mischievously:--

"You told me that you were a bold man with women, and I know that at least
that part of what you said was untrue, for you are a bashful man, John,
you are downright bashful. It is I who have been bold. You were too timid
to woo me, and I so longed for you that I--I--was not timid."

"For God's sake, Dorothy, I beg you to have pity and to make no jest of
me. Your kindness almost kills me, and your ridicule--"

"There, there, John," whispered the girl, "I will never again make a jest
of you if it gives you pain. Tell me, John, tell me truly, was it all
false--that which you told me about the other women?"

There had been more truth in John's bragging than he cared to confess. He
feared and loathed a lie; so he said evasively, but with perfect truth:--

"You must know, my goddess. If you do not know without the telling that I
love you with all my being; if you do not know that there is for me and
ever will be no woman but you in all the world; if you do not know that
you have stolen my soul and that I live only in your presence, all that I
can say will avail nothing toward convincing you. I am almost crazed with
love for you, and with pain and torture. For the love of God let me leave
you that I may hide my face."

"Never," cried the girl, clasping her hands about his neck and pressing
her lips gently upon his. "Never. There, that will soothe you, won't it,
John?"

It did soothe him, and in the next moment, John, almost frenzied with joy,
hurt the girl by the violence of his embraces; but she, woman-like, found
her heaven in the pain.

They went back to the stone bench beside the gate, and after a little time
Dorothy said:--

"But tell me, John, would you have kissed the other woman? Would you
really have done it?"

John's honesty certainly was good policy in that instance. The adroit girl
had set a trap for him.

"I suppose I would," answered John, with a groan.

"It hurts me to hear the fact," said Dorothy, sighing; "but it pleases me
to hear the truth. I know all else you tell me is true. I was trying you
when I asked the question, for I certainly knew what you intended to do. A
woman instinctively knows when a man is going to--to--when anything of
that sort is about to happen."

"How does she know?" asked John.

Rocks and breakers ahead for Dorothy.

"I cannot tell you," replied the girl, naively, "but she knows."

"Perhaps it is the awakened desire in her own heart which forewarns her,"
said John, stealthily seeking from Dorothy a truth that would pain him
should he learn it.

"I suppose that is partly the source of her knowledge," replied the
knowing one, with a great show of innocence in her manner. John was in no
position to ask impertinent questions, nor had he any right to grow angry
at unpleasant discoveries; but he did both, although for a time he
suppressed the latter.

"You believe she is sure to know, do you?" he asked.

"Usually," she replied. "Of course there are times when--when it happens
so suddenly that--"

John angrily sprang to his feet, took a few hurried steps in front of
Dorothy, who remained demurely seated with her eyes cast down, and then
again he took his place beside her on the stone bench. He was trembling
with anger and jealousy. The devil was in the girl that night for
mischief.

"I suppose you speak from the fulness of your experience," demanded John,
in tones that would have been insulting had they not been pleasing to the
girl. She had seen the drift of John's questions at an early stage of the
conversation, and his easily aroused jealousy was good proof to her of his
affection. After all, she was in no danger from rocks and breakers. She
well knew the currents, eddies, rocks, and shoals of the sea she was
navigating, although she had never before sailed it. Her fore-mothers, all
the way back to Eve, had been making charts of those particular waters for
her especial benefit. Why do we, a slow-moving, cumbersome army of men,
continue to do battle with the foe at whose hands defeat is always our
portion?

"Experience?" queried Dorothy, her head turned to one side in a
half-contemplative attitude. "Experience? Of course that is the only way
we learn anything."

John again sprang to his feet, and again he sat down beside the girl. He
had so recently received forgiveness for his own sins that he dared not be
unforgiving toward Dorothy. He did not speak, and she remained silent,
willing to allow time for the situation to take its full effect. The
wisdom of the serpent is black ignorance compared with the cunning of a
girl in Dorothy's situation. God gives her wit for the occasion as He
gives the cat soft paws, sharp claws, and nimbleness. She was teaching
John a lesson he would never forget. She was binding him to her with hoops
of steel.

"I know that I have not the right to ask," said John, suppressing his
emotions, "but may I know merely as a matter of trivial information--may I
know the name of--of the person--this fellow with whom you have had so
full an experience? God curse him! Tell me his name." He caught the girl
violently by both arms as if he would shake the truth out of her. He was
unconsciously making full amends for the faults he had committed earlier
in the evening. The girl made no answer. John's powers of self-restraint,
which were not of the strongest order, were exhausted, and he again sprang
to his feet and stood towering before her in a passion. "Tell me his
name," he said hoarsely. "I demand it. I will not rest till I kill him."

"If you would kill him, I surely will not tell you his name. In truth, I
admit I am very fond of him."

"Speak not another word to me till you tell me his name," stormed John. I
feel sorry for John when I think of the part he played in this interview;
but every man knows well his condition.

"I care not," continued John, "in what manner I have offended you, nor
does my debt of gratitude to you for your generosity in forgiving my sins
weigh one scruple against this you have told me. No man, unless he were a
poor clown, would endure it; and I tell you now, with all my love for you,
I will not--I will not!"

Dorothy was beginning to fear him. She of course did not fear personal
violence; but after all, while he was slower than she, he was much
stronger every way, and when aroused, his strength imposed itself upon her
and she feared to play him any farther.

"Sit beside me, John, and I will tell you his name," said the girl,
looking up to him, and then casting down her eyes. A dimpling smile was
playing about her lips.

"No, I will not sit by you," replied John, angrily. She partly rose, and
taking him by the arm drew him to her side.

"Tell me his name," again demanded John, sitting rigidly by Dorothy. "Tell
me his name."

"Will you kill him?" she asked.

"That I will," he answered. "Of that you may rest assured."

"If you kill him, John, it will break my heart; for to do so, you must
commit suicide. There is no other man but you, John. With you I had my
first, last, and only experience."

John, of course, was speechless. He had received only what he deserved. I
freely admit he played the part of a fool during this entire interview
with Dorothy, and he was more fully convinced of the fact than either you
or I can be. I do not like to have a fool for the hero of my history; but
this being a history and not a romance, I must tell you of events just as
they happened, and of persons exactly as they were, else my conscience
will smite me for untruthfulness. Dorothy's last assault was too much for
John. He could neither parry nor thrust.

Her heart was full of mirth and gladness.

"None other but you, John," she repeated, leaning forward in front of him,
and looking up into his eyes. A ray of moonlight stealing its way between
the forest boughs fell upon her upturned face and caused it to glow with a
goddess-like radiance.

"None but you, John. There never has been and there never shall be
another."

When John's consciousness returned he said, "Dorothy, can you love such a
fool as I?"

"That I can and that I do with all my heart," she returned.

"And can you forgive me for this last fault--for doubting you?"

"That is easily done," she answered softly, "because doubt is the child of
love."

"But you do not doubt me?" he replied.

"N-o-o," she answered somewhat haltingly; "but I--I am a woman."

"And a woman's heart is the home of faith," said John, reverentially.

"Y-e-s," she responded, still not quite sure of her ground. "Sometimes it
is the home of too much faith, but faith, like virtue, is its own reward.
Few persons are false to one who gives a blind, unquestioning faith. Even
a poor degree of honor responds to it in kind."

"Dorothy, I am so unworthy of you that I stand abashed in your presence,"
replied John.

"No, you are not unworthy of me. We don't look for unmixed good in men,"
said the girl with a mischievous little laugh. Then seriously: "Those
virtues you have are so great and so strong, John, that my poor little
virtues, while they perhaps are more numerous than yours, are but weak
things by comparison. In truth, there are some faults in men which we
women do not--do not altogether dislike. They cause us--they make us--oh,
I cannot express exactly what I mean. They make us more eager perhaps. A
too constant man is like an overstrong sweet: he cloys us. The faults I
speak of hurt us; but we thrive on them. Women enjoy pain now and then.
Malcolm was telling me the other day that the wise people of the East have
a saying: 'Without shadow there can be no light; without death there can
be no life; without suffering there can be no joy.' Surely is that saying
true of women. She who suffers naught enjoys naught. When a woman becomes
passive, John, she is but a clod. Pain gives us a vent--a vent for
something, I know not what it is; but this I know, we are happier for it."

"I fear, Dorothy, that I have given you too much 'vent,' as you call it,"
said John.

"No, no," she replied. "That was nothing. My great vent is that I can pour
out my love upon you, John, without stint. Now that I know you are mine, I
have some one whom I can deluge with it. Do you know, John, I believe that
when God made me He collected together the requisite portions of reason,
imagination, and will,--there was a great plenty of will, John,--and all
the other ingredients that go to make a human being. But after He had
gotten them all together there was still a great space left to be filled,
and He just threw in an immensity of love with which to complete me.
Therefore, John, am I not in true proportion. There is too much love in
me, and it wells up at times and overflows my heart. How thankful I should
be that I may pour it upon you and that it will not be wasted. How good
you are to give me the sweet privilege."

"How thankful should I be, Dorothy. I have never known you till this
night. I am unworthy--"

"Not another word of that sort, John," she interrupted, covering his mouth
with her hand.

They stood for a long time talking a deal of celestial nonsense which I
shall not give you. I fear I have already given you too much of what John
and Dorothy did and said in this very sentimental interview. But in no
other way can I so well make you to know the persons of whom I write. I
might have said Dorothy was so and so, and John was such and such. I might
have analyzed them in long, dull pages of minute description; but it is
that which persons do and say that gives us true concept of their
characters; what others say about them is little else than a mere
statement that black is black and white is white. But to my story again.

Dorothy by her beauty had won John's admiration when first he beheld her.
When he met her afterward, her charms of mind and her thousand winsome
ways moved him deeply. But upon the evening of which I am now telling you
he beheld for the first time her grand burning soul, and he saw her pure
heart filled to overflowing with its dangerous burden of love, right from
the hands of God Himself, as the girl had said. John was of a coarser
fibre than she who had put him up for her idol; but his sensibilities were
keen, and at their awakening he saw clearly the worth of the priceless
treasure which propitious fate had given him in the love of Dorothy, and
he sat humbly at her feet. Yet she knew it not, but sat humbly at John's
feet the happiest woman in all the world because of her great good fortune
in having a demi-god upon whom she could lavish the untold wealth of her
heart. If you are a woman, pray God that He may touch your eyes with
Dorothy's blessed blindness. There is a heaven in the dark for you, if you
can find it.

I must leave the scene, though I am loath to do so. Seldom do we catch a
glimpse of a human soul, and more seldom still does it show itself like a
gust of God's breath upon the deep of eternity as it did that night in
Dorothy.

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