Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall Part 30

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 G.o.d 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 n.o.bly. 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sistance 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, pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sive 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.ddess. 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 G.o.d 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, navely, "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, c.u.mbersome 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 att.i.tude. "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. G.o.d 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? G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion. "Tell me his name," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I demand it. I will not rest till I kill him."