I
will meet you at Bowling Green Gate--." The girl could endure no more. She
sprang with a scream toward her father and tried to snatch the letter. Sir
George drew back, holding firmly to the paper. She followed him
frantically, not to be thrown off, and succeeded in clutching the letter.
Sir George violently thrust her from him. In the scuffle that ensued the
letter was torn, and the lower portion of the sheet remained in Dorothy's
hand. She ran to the fireplace, intending to thrust the fragment into the
fire, but she feared that her father might rescue it from the ashes. She
glanced at the piece of paper, and saw that the part she had succeeded in
snatching from her father bore John's name. Sir George strode hurriedly
across the room toward her and she ran to me.

"Malcolm! Malcolm!" she cried in terror. The cry was like a shriek. Then I
saw her put the paper in her mouth. When she reached me she threw herself
upon my breast and clung to me with her arms about my neck. She trembled
as a single leaf among the thousands that deck a full-leaved tree may
tremble upon a still day, moved by a convulsive force within itself. While
she clung to me her glorious bust rose and fell piteously, and her
wondrous eyes dilated and shone with a marvellous light. The expression
was the output of her godlike vitality, strung to its greatest tension.
Her face was pale, but terror dominated all the emotions it expressed. Her
fear, however, was not for herself. The girl, who would have snapped her
fingers at death, saw in the discovery which her father was trying to
make, loss to her of more than life. That which she had possessed for less
than one brief hour was about to be taken from her. She had not enjoyed
even one little moment alone in which to brood her new-found love, and to
caress the sweet thought of it. The girl had but a brief instant of rest
in my arms till Sir George dragged her from me by his terrible strength.

"Where is the paper?" he cried in rage. "It contained the fellow's
signature."

"I have swallowed it, father, and you must cut me open to find it.
Doubtless that would be a pleasant task for you," answered Dorothy, who
was comparatively calm now that she knew her father could not discover
John's name. I believe Sir George in his frenzy would have killed the girl
had he then learned that the letter was from John Manners.

"I command you to tell me this fellow's name," said Sir George, with a
calmness born of tempe