for going, but good Mrs. Manners herself had made me promise, and
I could: not break my word. I must have sat very silent and preoccupied
at the table, where all was wit and merriment. And more than once I saw
the laughter leave Dorothy's face, and caught her eyes upon; me with
such a look as set my beast throbbing. They would not meet my own, but
would turn away instantly. I was heavy indeed that night, and did
not follow the company into the ballroom, but made my excuses to Mrs.
Manners.

The lawn lay bathed in moonlight; and as I picked, my way over it toward
the stables for Firefly, I paused to look back at the house aglow, with
light, the music of the fiddles and the sound of laughter floating out
of the open windows. Even as I gaped a white figure was framed in the
doorway, paused a moment on the low stone step, and then came on until
it stood beside me.

"Are you not well, Richard?"

"Yes, I am well," I answered. I scarcely knew my own voice.

"Is your grandfather worse?"

"No, Dorothy; he seems better to-day."

She stood seemingly irresolute, her eyes new lifted, now falling before
mine. Her slender arms bare, save for the little puff at the shoulders;
her simple dress drawn a little above the waist, then falling straight
to the white slipper. How real the ecstasy of that moment, and the pain
of it!

"Why do you not coarse over, as you used to?" she asked, in a low tone.

"I am very busy," I replied evasively; "Mr. Carvel cannot attend to his
affairs." I longed to tell her the whole truth, but the words would not
come.

"I hear you are managing the estate all alone," she said.

"There is no one else to do it."

"Richard," she cried, drawing closer; "you are in trouble. I--I have
seen it. You are so silent, and--and you seem to have become older. Tell
me, is it your Uncle Grafton?"

So astonished was I at the question, and because she had divined so,
surely, that I did not answer.

"Is it?" she asked again.

"Yes," I said; "yes, in part."

And then came voices calling from the house. They had missed her.

"I am so sorry, Richard. I shall tell no one."

She laid her hand ever so lightly upon mine and was gone. I stood
staring after her until she disappeared in the door. All the way home I
marvelled, my thoughts tumultuous, my hopes rising and falling.

But when next I saw her, I thought she had forgotten.

We had little company at the Hall that year, on account of Mr. Carvel.
And I had be