Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall Part 52

"It was true," I responded. "I promised to help Queen Mary escape, and I promised to go with her; but within one hour of the time when I gave my word I regretted it as I have never regretted anything else in all my life. I resolved that, while I should, according to my promise, help the Scottish queen escape, I would not go with her. I resolved to wait here at Haddon to tell all to you and to our queen, and then I would patiently take my just punishment from each. My doom from the queen, I believed, would probably be death; but I feared more your--G.o.d help me! It is useless for me to speak." Here I broke down and fell upon my knees, crying, "Madge, Madge, pity me, pity me! Forgive me if you can, and, if our queen decrees it, I shall die happy."

In my desperation I caught the girl's hand, but she drew it quickly from me, and said:--

"Do not touch me!"

She arose to her feet, and groped her way to her bedroom. We were in Aunt Dorothy's room. I watched Madge as she sought with her outstretched hand the doorway; and when she pa.s.sed slowly through it, the sun of my life seemed to turn black. Just as Madge pa.s.sed from the room, Sir William St.

Loe, with two yeomen, entered by Sir George's door and placed irons upon my wrist and ankles. I was led by Sir William to the dungeon, and no word was spoken by either of us.

I had never in my life feared death, and now I felt that I would welcome it. When a man is convinced that his life is useless, through the dire disaster that he is a fool, he values it little, and is even more than willing to lose it.

Then there were three of us in the dungeon,--John, Lord Rutland, and myself; and we were all there because we had meddled in the affairs of others, and because Dorothy had inherited from Eve a capacity for insane, unreasoning jealousy.

Lord Rutland was sitting on the ground in a corner of the dungeon. John, by the help of a projecting stone in the masonry, had climbed to the small grated opening which served to admit a few straggling rays of light into the dungeon's gloom. He was gazing out upon the fair day, whose beauty he feared would soon fade away from him forever.

Elizabeth's coldness had given him no hope. It had taken all hope from his father.

The opening of the door attracted John's attention, and he turned his face toward me when I entered. He had been looking toward the light, and his eyes, unaccustomed for the moment to the darkness, failed at first to recognize of me. When the dungeon door had closed behind me, he sprang down from his perch by the window, and came toward me with outstretched hands. He said sorrowfully:--

"Malcolm, have I brought you here, too? Why are you in irons? It seems that I am destined to bring calamity upon all whom I love."

"It is a long story," I replied laughingly. "I will tell it to you when the time begins to drag; but I tell you now it is through no fault of yours that I am here. No one is to blame for my misfortune but myself."

Then I continued bitterly, "Unless it be the good G.o.d who created me a fool."

John went to his father's side and said:--

"Sir Malcolm is here, father. Will you not rise and greet him?"

John's voice aroused his father, and the old lord came to the little patch of light in which I was standing and said: "A terrible evil has fallen upon us, Sir Malcolm, and without our fault. I grieve to learn that you also are entangled in the web. The future looks very dark."

"Cheer up, father," said John, taking the old man's hand. "Light will soon come; I am sure it will."

"I have tried all my life to be a just man," said Lord Rutland. "I have failed at times, I fear, but I have tried. That is all any man can do. I pray that G.o.d in His mercy will soon send light to you, John, whatever of darkness there may be in store for me."

I thought, "He will surely answer this just man's prayer," and almost before the thought was completed the dungeon door turned upon its hinges and a great light came with glorious refulgence through the open portal--Dorothy.

"John!"

Never before did one word express so much of mingled joy and grief. Fear and confidence, and, greater than all, love unutterable were blended in its eloquent tones. She sprang to John as the lightning leaps from cloud to cloud, and he caught her to his heart. He gently kissed her hair, her face being hidden in the folds of his doublet.

"Let me kneel, John, let me kneel," she murmured.

"No, Dorothy, no," he responded, holding her closely in his arms.

"But one moment, John," she pleased.

"No, no; let me see your eyes, sweet one," said John, trying to turn her face upward toward his own.

"I cannot yet, John, I cannot. Please let me kneel for one little moment at your feet."

John saw that the girl would find relief in self-abas.e.m.e.nt, so he relaxed his arms, and she sank to her knees upon the dungeon floor. She wept softly for a moment, and then throwing back her head with her old impulsive manner looked up into his face.

"Oh, forgive me, John! Forgive me! Not that I deserve your forgiveness, but because you pity me."

"I forgave you long ago, Dorothy. You had my full forgiveness before you asked it."

He lifted the weeping girl to her feet and the two clung together in silence. After a pause Dorothy spoke:--

"You have not asked me, John, why I betrayed you."

"I want to know nothing, Dorothy, save that you love me."

"That you already know. But you cannot know how much I love you. I myself don't know. John, I seem to have turned all to love. 'However much there is of me, that much there is of love for you. As the salt is in every drop of the sea, so love is in every part of my being; but John," she continued, drooping her head and speaking regretfully, "the salt in the sea is not unmixed with many things hurtful." Her face blushed with shame and she continued limpingly: "And my love is not--is not without evil. Oh, John, I feel deep shame in telling you, but my love is terribly jealous.

At times a jealousy comes over me so fierce and so distracting that under its influence I am mad, John, mad. I then see nothing in its true light; my eyes seem filled with--with blood, and all things appear red or black and--and--oh! John, I pray you never again cause me jealousy. It makes a demon of me."

You may well know that John was nonplussed.

"I cause you jealousy?" he asked in surprise. "When did I--" But Dorothy interrupted him, her eyes flashing darkly and a note of fierceness in her voice. He saw for himself the effects of jealousy upon her.

"That white--white Scottish wanton! G.o.d's curse be upon her! She tried to steal you from me."

"Perhaps she did," replied John, smilingly, "of that I do not know. But this I do know, and you, Dorothy, must know it too henceforth and for all time to come. No woman can steal my love from you. Since I gave you my troth I have been true to you; I have not been false even in one little thought."

"I feel sure, John, that you have not been untrue to me," said the girl with a faint smile playing about her lips; "but--but you remember the strange woman at Bowling Green Gate whom you would have--"

"Dorothy, I hope you have not come to my dungeon for the purpose of making me more wretched than I already am?"

"No, no, John, forgive me," she cried softly; "but John, I hate her, I hate her! and I want you to promise that you too will hate her."

"I promise," said John, "though, you have had no cause for jealousy of Queen Mary."

"Perhaps--not," she replied hesitatingly. "I have never thought," the girl continued poutingly, "that you did anything of which I should be jealous; but she--she--oh, I hate her! Let us not talk about her. Jennie Faxton told me--I will talk about her, and you shall not stop me--Jennie Faxton told me that the white woman made love to you and caused you to put your arm about her waist one evening on the battlements and-"

"Jennie told you a lie," said John.

"Now don't interrupt me," the girl cried nervously, almost ready for tears, "and I will try to tell you all. Jennie told me the--the white woman looked up to you this fashion," and the languishing look she gave John in imitation of Queen Mary was so beautiful and comical that he could do nothing but laugh and cover her face with kisses, then laugh again and love the girl more deeply and yet more deeply with each new breath he drew. Dorothy was not sure whether she wanted to laugh or to cry, so she did both.

"Jennie told me in the middle of the night," continued Dorothy, "when all things seem so vivid and appear so distorted and--and that terrible blinding jealousy of which I told you came upon me and drove me mad. I really thought, John, that I should die of the agony. Oh, John, if you could know the anguish I suffered that night you would pity me; you would not blame me."

"I do not blame you, Dorothy."

"No, no, there-" she kissed him softly, and quickly continued: "I felt that I must separate her from you at all cost. I would have done murder to accomplish my purpose. Some demon whispered to me, 'Tell Queen Elizabeth,'

and--and oh, John, let me kneel again."

"No, no, Dorothy, let us talk of something else," said John, soothingly.

"In one moment, John. I thought only of the evil that would come to her--her of Scotland. I did not think of the trouble I would bring to you, John, until the queen, after asking me if you were my lover, said angrily: 'You may soon seek another.' Then, John, I knew that I had also brought evil upon you. Then I _did_ suffer. I tried to reach Rutland, and you know all else that happened on that terrible night. Now John, you know all--all. I have withheld nothing. I have, confessed all, and I feel that a great weight is taken from my heart. You will not hate me, will you, John?"

He caught the girl to his breast and tried to turn her face toward his.