ost ceased beating. The
shock of detection made him pause for an instant, and that brief space
of time brought Dorothy into view. He would not run, but turned
towards her, throbbing with the panting fears of a creature brought to
bay. The wild light in his eyes was quenched when he saw the kindly
glow in the blue orbs of the maiden. She put out her hand.

"Thou art almost a stranger," she said.

The youth's dry lips could frame no answer, nor did he take the
proffered hand. Kindly concern, where he had expected contempt and
reproach, completely unnerved him. Dorothy's hand was still held out,
and her eyes grew kinder as he looked into them. He took the dainty
fingers in his trembling hand and pressed them to his hot, dry lips.
Dorothy had almost the sensation of a burn, and she winced. Windybank
took the movement as a repulse, and threw the hand from him.

"Art thou going to torture me too?" he cried harshly. "Why do you all
hate me so?"

"Hate!" echoed Dorothy. "La! Master Windybank."

"I am shunned like a leper," he went on. "Shall I get me into a sheet,
carry a bell, and cry 'Unclean! unclean!' as I walk the roads?"

"But I do neither hate thee nor shun thee, else I had not called to
thee. 'Tis thou dost make a hermit of thyself. And thou art ill and
fevered," she added compassionately; "thou art wasted well-nigh to a
shadow."

"I have no rest, no peace," he groaned. "I am scorned of my
neighbours, spied upon, suspected, insulted. Do ye all think I have no
heart to feel these things, no spirit to resent them? But I can return
hate for hate, injury for injury. Let some men look to themselves!"

His tones were so fierce that Dorothy quailed. She recovered herself
quickly.

"Come into the garden," she said.

"I cannot come where I am not welcome."

"I am asking thee."

"I shall not come."

"Then must I come to thee."

Suiting action to the words, the maiden hurried through the gate, and
in a minute more Windybank was sitting beside her in the arbour.

Now Mistress Dorothy was a maiden very prone to act upon impulse. She
would do a thing, and then, after accomplishment, consider the action,
and ofttimes repent. She had never entertained any very great liking
for Master Andrew, although her father had at one time made much of him
and favoured him as an acceptable suitor for his daughter's hand. But
the fact that the young gentleman was in serious disgrace, and spoken
ill of by tho