only for you."

Jack started to his feet, a dull pallor creeping into his face as he
drew back from his mother's touch.

"Dorothy is _not false_ to me!" he cried. "If an angel from heaven
should tell me so I would not believe it. She is my betrothed bride. She
wears my betrothal-ring upon her little hand. No matter where she is,
she is true to me--true as God's promise. Shame has caused her to hide
herself from me, because she was so foolish as to go with another on an
excursion on Labor Day. But I have forgiven all that long ago. Oh,
Heaven! if I could but let her know it!"

Mrs. Garner shook her head.

"A young girl who can leave you for months without a word does not care
for you, my boy," she answered, sadly. "Surely there is great truth in
the words that 'Love is blind,' if you can not be made to see this."

Still the noble lover shook his head. There was no power on earth strong
enough to shake his faith in Dorothy's love.

Mrs. Garner had said all that she could say for Jessie, and she bowed
her head, and great tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt great pity
for Jessie. Why could not her son love her? She had heard the story of
jilted lovers turning to some sympathizing heart for solace, and in time
learning to love their consoler, and she wondered if this might not
mercifully happen to her darling, idolized boy.

She watched him as he paced excitedly up and down the room. Suddenly he
turned to her, and during all the long after years of sorrow and pain
she never forgot the expression of his face.

"Mother!" he cried, hoarsely, "if my Dorothy ever proved false to me, I
should be tempted to--to--kill her--and--then--kill--myself!"

CHAPTER XIII.

The _contretemps_ which had been so cleverly averted--of giving the
pony, Black Beauty, to Miss Vincent, and Dorothy's keen
resentment--should have proved a lesson to Harry Kendal and warned him
not to play with edged tools.

He was a little careful of what he said to Iris for the next few days,
when Dorothy was present; but gradually this restraint began to wear
off, and he grew to be almost reckless in the way he laughed and carried
on with the girl, even though his _fiancee_ was in the room. This
attention was certainly not discouraged by Iris Vincent.

He smiled to see her go in raptures over everything in and about Gray
Gables, and she, with her glorious dark eyes, always smiled back at him.
Their chats grew longer and more frequent; they wer