It lasted but
a moment, however, and he continued muttering to himself: "If she loves me
and will be my wife, I will--I will ... In God's name what will I do? If I
were to marry her, old Vernon would kill her, and I--I should kill my
father."

Then John mounted his horse and rode homeward the unhappiest happy man in
England. He had made perilous strides toward that pinnacle sans honor,
sans caution, sans conscience, sans everything but love.

That evening while we were walking on the battlements, smoking, John told
me of his interview with Dorothy and extolled her beauty, grace, and
winsomeness which, in truth, as you know, were matchless. But when he
spoke of "her sweet, shy modesty," I came near to laughing in his face.

"Did she not write a letter asking you to meet her?" I asked.

"Why--y-e-s," returned John.

"And," I continued, "has she not from the first sought you?"

"It almost seems to be so," answered John, "but notwithstanding the fact
that one might say--might call--that one might feel that her conduct
is--that it might be--you know, well--it might be called by some persons
not knowing all the facts in the case, immodest--I hate to use the word
with reference to her--yet it does not appear to me to have been at all
immodest in Mistress Vernon, and, Sir Malcolm, I should be deeply offended
were any of my friends to intimate--"

"Now, John," I returned, laughing at him, "you could not, if you wished,
make me quarrel with you; and if you desire it, I will freely avow my firm
belief in the fact that my cousin Dorothy is the flower of modesty. Does
that better suit you?"

I could easily see that my bantering words did not suit him at all; but I
laughed at him, and he could not find it in his heart to show his
ill-feeling.

"I will not quarrel with you," he returned; "but in plain words, I do not
like the tone in which you speak of her. It hurts me, and I do not believe
you would wilfully give me pain."

"Indeed, I would not," I answered seriously.

"Mistress Vernon's conduct toward me," John continued, "has been gracious.
There has been no immodesty nor boldness in it."

I laughed again and said: "I make my humble apologies to her Majesty,
Queen Dorothy. But in all earnestness, Sir John, you are right: Dorothy is
modest and pure. As for her conduct toward you, there is a royal quality
about beauty such as my cousin possesses which gives an air of
graciousness to acts that in a plainer girl would see