ueen I
had fears lest Dorothy's inflammable jealousy might cause trouble, and now
those fears were rapidly transforming themselves into a feeling of
certainty. There is nothing in life so sweet and so dangerous as the love
of a hot-blooded woman.

I soon saw Dorothy again. "Tell me," said I, in conciliation, "tell me,
please, what is your reason for acting as you do toward Leicester, and why
should you look differently upon similar conduct on John's part?"

"I will not tell you my plans," she responded,--"not now, at least.
Perhaps I shall do so when I have recovered from my ill-temper. It is hard
for me to give my reasons for feeling differently about like conduct on
John's part. Perhaps I feel as I do because--because--It is this way:
While I might do little things--mere nothings--such as I have done--it
would be impossible for me to do any act of unfaithfulness to John. Oh, it
could not be. But with him, he--he--well, he is a man and--and--oh, don't
talk to me! Don't talk to me! You are driving me mad. Out of my sight! Out
of my room! Holy Virgin! I shall die before I have him; I know I shall."

There it was again. The thought of Mary Stuart drove her wild. Dorothy
threw herself on her face upon the bed, and Madge went over and sat by her
side to soothe her. I, with a feeling of guilt, so adroit had been
Dorothy's defence, left the girls and went to my room in the tower to
unravel, by the help of my pipe, the tangled web of woman's
incomprehensibility. I failed, as many another man had failed before me,
and as men will continue to fail to the end of time.

CHAPTER XIV

MARY STUART

And now I come to an event in this history which I find difficult to place
before you in its true light. For Dorothy's sake I wish I might omit it
altogether. But in true justice to her and for the purpose of making you
see clearly the enormity of her fault and the palliating excuses therefor,
if any there were, I shall pause briefly to show the condition of affairs
at the time of which I am about to write--a time when Dorothy's madness
brought us to the most terrible straits and plunged us into deepest
tribulations.

Although I have been unable to show you as much of John as I have wished
you to see, you nevertheless must know that he, whose nature was not like
the shallow brook but was rather of the quality of a deep, slow-moving
river, had caught from Dorothy an infection of love from which he would
never recover. His so