? Tell me, think you, John, should I be
here if I were not willing and eager to--to keep that promise?"

"Will you go with me notwithstanding your father's hatred of my house?" he
asked.

"Ah, truly that I will, John," she answered; "surely you know I will go
with you."

"Let us go at once. Let us lose not a moment. We have already delayed too
long," cried John in eager ecstasy.

"Not to-night, John; I cannot go to-night," she pleaded. "Think of my
attire," and she drew my cloak more closely about her. "I cannot go with
you this time. My father is angry with me because of you, although he does
not know who you are. Is it not famous to have a lover in secret of whom
nobody knows? Father is angry with me, and as I told you in my letter, he
keeps me a prisoner in my rooms. Aunt Dorothy stands guard over me. The
dear, simple old soul! She told me, thinking I was Malcolm, that she was
too old to be duped by a girl! Oh, it was too comical!" And she threw back
her head and gave forth a peal of laughter that John was reluctantly
compelled to silence. "I would so delight to tell you of the scene when I
was in Aunt Dorothy's room impersonating Malcolm; but I have so much else
to say of more importance that I know I shall not tell the half. When you
have left me, I shall remember what I most wished to say but forgot."

"No, John," she continued seriously, "my father has been cruel to me, and
I try to make myself think I do not love him; but I fail, for I do love
him." Tears were welling up in her eyes and stifling her voice. In a
moment she continued: "It would kill him, John, were I to go with you
now. I _will_ go with you soon,--I give you my solemn promise to that--but
I cannot go now,--not now. I cannot leave him and the others. With all his
cruelty to me, I love him, John, next to you. He will not come to see me
nor will he speak to me. Think of that." The tears that had welled up to
her eyes fell in a piteous stream over her cheeks. "Aunt Dorothy and
Madge," she continued, "are so dear to me that the thought of leaving them
is torture. But I will go with you some day, John, some day soon, I
promise you. They have always been kind and gentle to me, and I love them
and my father and my dear home where I was born and where my sweet mother
died--and Dolcy--I love them all so dearly that I must prepare myself to
leave them, John, even to go with you. The heart strings of my whole life
bind me to them. Forgive me, John, forgiv