he repeated; "and will be yours for ever if you love
me as you say."

"What!" he cried, "you, the fair Dorothy Vernon, the Princess of the
Peak, the fairest jewel in the land, you give yourself to me--John
Manners, a simple esquire? I can scarce believe my ears."

"I will show you. John," she replied; "my life shall prove it. I have
loved you dearly ever since that self-same hunt"; and permitting her
love-troth to be sealed by a kiss, she buried her fair face in his
bosom and quietly wept in the excess of her joy.

CHAPTER XIII.

FATHER PHILIP'S ACCIDENT.

And thou hast loved him! Faith, what next?
It had been better far for thee
That thou had'st ne'er been born, than this.
Brood on thy folly, and return,
But when thou hast repented on't.

A WOMAN'S WHIM.

As the two lovers, happy in their newly-pledged love-troth, entered
the gateway of the Hall they were encountered by the news that Father
Philip had met with an accident. Margaret and Sir Everard Crowleigh
had not yet returned, and messengers were even then, by the
chamberlain's commands, preparing to go out to secure aid.

"'Tis a sad mishap, my lady," said that functionary, as Dorothy
entered. "That stupid old horse of his threw him against a tree, and
we cannot find Sir Benedict anywhere; the poor father is bleeding
to death. He's dying, my lady, dying; what will the baron do if he
return?"

"Hush! Thomas, of course he will return."

"May the blessed Virgin take pity on us," pursued the wretched man,
"there is an evil spirit o'er the place. Someone is working a spell
against us."

"Where is the father?" asked Manners abruptly.

"He lies in the chaplain's room; I can hear him groaning now. The
saints look down in----"

Dorothy passed on, heeding not the continued invocations which the old
man made to all the saints in the calendar, and led her lover into the
little room in which the unfortunate priest lay.

The portly form of Father Philip lay stretched at full length upon a
wooden bench, and the room resounded with his painful groans. As they
approached nearer to him they could see the fearful injuries he had
received; and the continued reiteration of the sufferer that he was
about to die needed no other confirmation than a glance at his pale
face, upon which the mark of death was plainly written.

Father Philip, despite his faults, was universally beloved in the
neighbourhood--by the poor for the bounty he dispensed at the