"We are two
woodmen short, as luck will have it."

"I have come to be one, then," replied Manners. "I am disguised for
that alone."

And so it came to pass that John Manners, the nephew of an earl,
whose uncle, even now, was high in favour with the Queen, and who had
himself bowed the knee on more than one occasion before her throne,
had become a woodsman, and joined the foresters of Sir George Vernon.
Love, and love alone, could have induced him to humble himself so
much. It was for love of Dorothy that he turned his back upon the
Royal Court; and now, to win his bride, he was content, nay happy, to
discard his own station in life, and take upon himself the lot of a
common woodsman.

Fortune was indeed leading him by strange paths, but he trusted she
would lead him to the prize at last.

Dorothy's lot, meanwhile, had not been a bright one. Edward Stanley
was relentless, and in answer to her piteous appeals that she loved
him not, he cited the baron's words, referred her to the promise Sir
George had rashly made to Sir Thomas; he declared that he loved her
fervently, and, had it not been for the baron's interference, would
have carried her off at the end of a month and have married her
straightway.

Manners was sternly forbidden her; the gates of Haddon were closed
against him, and even an excuse was found to keep Crowleigh away as
well. It was fondly hoped that these stringent measures would have the
effect of bringing Dorothy to her senses, but their plans completely
failed. The maiden began to sicken. The colour fled from her rosy
cheeks, and she began to grow rapidly worse. Lady Vernon ascribed it
to mere obstinacy, and grew impatient with her, and made her worse
than she would otherwise have been by finding fault with everything
she did; and by setting her long tasks of tenter-stitching to perform,
making her unhappy lot more miserable still. The only friend she had
to whom she could unbosom her secrets was her maid Lettice, and during
this time the hearts of the two girls were knitted closely together,
the one by a craving for sympathy, and the other drawn to love by the
dual bond of love and pity.

Many a night had these two wept together in the darkness and silence
of an unlighted room, and many a time had Dorothy laid her head upon
her tire-maid's knee and sobbed until with swollen eyes she had sobbed
herself to sleep; and many a night had Dorothy sat alone, forbidden to
leave the Hall, while her maid