rom now I will have you flogged
from my door by the butcher."

"What have I done?" cried Dorothy. "What have I done?"

"Your regrets come late, Mistress Vernon," said I.

"She shall have more to regret," said Sir George, sullenly. "Go to your
room, you brazen, disobedient huzzy, and if you leave it without my
permission, by God, I will have you whipped till you bleed. I will teach
you to say 'I won't' when I say 'you shall.' God curse my soul, if I don't
make you repent this day!"

As I left the room Dorothy was in tears, and Sir George was walking the
floor in a towering rage. The girl had learned that I was right in what I
had told her concerning her father's violent temper.

I went at once to my room in Eagle Tower and collected my few belongings
in a bundle. Pitifully small it was, I tell you.

Where I should go I knew not, and where I should remain I knew even less,
for my purse held only a few shillings--the remnant of the money Queen
Mary had sent to me by the hand of Sir Thomas Douglas. England was as
unsafe for me as Scotland; but how I might travel to France without money,
and how I might without a pass evade Elizabeth's officers who guarded
every English port, even were I supplied with gold, were problems for
which I had no solution.

There were but two persons in Haddon Hall to whom I cared to say farewell.
They were Lady Madge and Will Dawson. The latter was a Scot, and was
attached to the cause of Queen Mary. He and I had become friends, and on
several occasions we had talked confidentially over Mary's sad plight.

When my bundle was packed, I sought Madge and found her in the gallery
near the foot of the great staircase. She knew my step and rose to greet
me with a bright smile.

"I have come to say good-by to you, Cousin Madge," said I. The smile
vanished from her face.

"You are not going to leave Haddon Hall?" she asked.

"Yes, and forever," I responded. "Sir George has ordered me to go."

"No, no," she exclaimed. "I cannot believe it. I supposed that you and my
uncle were friends. What has happened? Tell me if you can--if you wish.
Let me touch your hand," and as she held out her hands, I gladly grasped
them.

I have never seen anything more beautiful than Madge Stanley's hands. They
were not small, but their shape, from the fair, round forearm and wrist to
the ends of the fingers was worthy of a sculptor's dream. Beyond their
physical beauty there was an expression in them which would