ll
yours--now! Oh, God! my blood is on fire." She buried her face on his
breast for shame, that he might not see her burning eyes and her scarlet
cheeks. Then after a time she cared not what he saw, and she lifted her
lips to his, a voluntary offering. The supreme emotions of the moment
drove all other consciousness from their souls.

"Tell me, Dorothy, that you will be my wife. Tell me, tell me!" cried
John.

"I will, I will, oh, how gladly, how gladly!"

"Tell me that no power on earth can force you to marry Lord Stanley. Tell
me that you will marry no man but me; that you will wait--wait for me
till--"

"I will marry no man but you, John, no man but you," said the girl,
whisperingly. Her head was thrown back from his breast that she might look
into his eyes, and that he might see the truth in hers. "I am all yours.
But oh, John, I cannot wait--I cannot! Do not ask me to wait. It would
kill me. I wear the golden heart you gave me, John," she continued, as she
nestled closer in his embrace. "I wear the golden heart always. It is
never from me, even for one little moment. I bear it always upon my heart,
John. Here it is." She drew from her breast the golden heart and kissed
it. Then she pressed it to his lips, and said: "I kiss it twenty times in
the day and in the night; ay, a hundred times. I do not know how often;
but now I kiss your real heart, John," and she kissed his breast, and then
stood tiptoe to lift her lips to his.

There was no room left now in John's heart for doubt that Dorothy Vernon
was his own forever and forever. She had convinced him beyond the reach of
fear or doubt. John forgot the lockless gate. He forgot everything but
Dorothy, and cruel time passed with a rapidity of which they were
unconscious. They were, however, brought back to consciousness by hearing
a long blast from the forester's bugle, and John immediately retreated
through the gate.

Dorothy then closed the gate and hastily seated herself upon a stone
bench against the Haddon side of the wall. She quickly assumed an attitude
of listless repose, and Dolcy, who was nibbling at the grass near by,
doubtless supposed that her mistress had come to Bowling Green Gate to
rest because it was a secluded place, and because she desired to be alone.

Dorothy's attitude was not assumed one moment too soon, for hardly was her
gown arranged with due regard to carelessness when Sir George's form rose
above the crest of Bowling Green Hill. In a