what can Sir Ensor Doone want with
considering me? Has Mistress Lorna told him?'

'All concerning thee, and thy doings; when she knowed old man were so
near his end. That vexed he was about thy low blood, a' thought her
would come to life again, on purpose for to bate 'ee. But after all,
there can't be scarcely such bad luck as that. Now, if her strook thee,
thou must take it; there be no denaying of un. Fire I have seen afore,
hot and red, and raging; but I never seen cold fire afore, and it maketh
me burn and shiver.'

And in truth, it made me both burn and shiver, to know that I must
either go straight to the presence of Sir Ensor Doone, or give up Lorna,
once for all, and rightly be despised by her. For the first time of my
life, I thought that she had not acted fairly. Why not leave the old man
in peace, without vexing him about my affair? But presently I saw again
that in this matter she was right; that she could not receive the old
man's blessing (supposing that he had one to give, which even a worse
man might suppose), while she deceived him about herself, and the life
she had undertaken.

Therefore, with great misgiving of myself, but no ill thought of my
darling, I sent Watch home, and followed Gwenny; who led me along very
rapidly, with her short broad form gliding down the hollow, from which
she had first appeared. Here at the bottom, she entered a thicket of
gray ash stubs and black holly, with rocks around it gnarled with roots,
and hung with masks of ivy. Here in a dark and lonely corner, with a
pixie ring before it, she came to a narrow door, very brown and solid,
looking like a trunk of wood at a little distance. This she opened,
without a key, by stooping down and pressing it, where the threshold met
the jamb; and then she ran in very nimbly, but I was forced to be
bent in two, and even so without comfort. The passage was close and
difficult, and as dark as any black pitch; but it was not long (be it as
it might), and in that there was some comfort. We came out soon at the
other end, and were at the top of Doone valley. In the chilly dusk air,
it looked most untempting, especially during that state of mind under
which I was labouring. As we crossed towards the Captain's house, we
met a couple of great Doones lounging by the waterside. Gwenny said
something to them, and although they stared very hard at me, they let me
pass without hindrance. It is not too much to say that when the little
maid opened