y slow way I began, to look forward to meeting Carver Doone, not
for my father's sake--I had forgiven that--but for Lorna's. I boded some
harm to her, and before I left I arranged that if she were ever in need
of help she should hang a black mantle on a stone that I could see from
a neighbouring hill.

When I got home, I found a king's messenger waiting for me, and, to the
alarm of my dear mother and my sisters, I was taken to London to be
examined by Chief Justice Jeffreys touching the Doone. He was a
fierce-looking man, with a bull-head, but he used me kindly--maybe for
Uncle Ben's sake--and I got back to Exmoor, none the worse for my
journey to the great city of London. But I lost all delight in my
homecoming when I went to the hill overlooking Glen Doone, and saw that
the stone was covered with a mantle. Off I set to climb the cliff above
the Bagworthy water, and there I found Lorna in a sad state of mind.

"Oh, John," she said, "Carver Doone is trying to force me to marry him.
Where have you been? Tis two months since I gave the signal."

Thereupon I told her of my travels to London, and when she learnt that
my seeming negligence of her was nothing but my wretched absence far
away, the tears fell from her eyes, and she came and sat so close beside
me that I trembled like a folded sheep at the bleating of her lamb.

"Dearest darling of my life!" I whispered through her clouds of hair, "I
love you more than heart can hold in silence! I have waited long and
long, and, though I am so far below you, I can wait no longer!"

"You have been very faithful, John," she murmured to the fern and moss.
"You are the bravest and the kindest and the simplest of all men, and I
like you very much."

"That will not do for me!" I said. "I will not have liking! I must have
your heart of hearts, even as you have mine, Lorna!"

She glanced up shyly through her fluttering lashes. Then she opened wide
upon me all the glorious depth and softness of her eyes, and flung both
arms around my neck.

"Darling," she cried, "you have won it all! I shall never be my own
again. I am yours for ever and ever!"

I am sure I know not what I did or said thereafter, being overcome with
transport by her words and her eyes.

"Hush!" said Lorna suddenly, drawing me away from the entrance to her
bower. "Here is Carver Doone!"

A great man was coming leisurely down the valley, and the light was
still good enough for me to descry his features through