"Poor Dorothy," she exclaimed, "I pity her, but she has done foolishly
indeed."

Lady Vernon was astonished; she had counted upon Margaret's support at
least.

"Pity her, indeed!" she scornfully laughed. "She shall have little
enough of my pity if ever I clap my eyes on her again," replied Lady
Vernon. "She shall never come here again."

"Hush, Maude," interrupted the baron, "I shall settle that."

Lady Vernon had never been spoken to in such a manner since she had
wedded Sir George, and she staggered back in surprise as though she
had been struck by an invisible hand.

"You will--!" she began, but checked herself. The baron's brow was
forbidding. She had never seen him look so threatening before, and she
cowered back in fear and kept a discreet silence.

"I am furious," the baron burst out, with a sudden revulsion of
feeling. "To think that my Dorothy should serve me thus! and as she
has chosen, so shall it be. She prefers Manners to me, then she shall
have him. I disown her, she is none of mine. She shall never return."

Flesh and blood, however, is very human, and, in spite of his stern
resolve never to see Dorothy again, the baron's naturally kind heart
soon began to soften, and in a short space of time his feelings had
entirely undergone a change. He longed to clasp his lost darling to
his heart again, and tell her she was forgiven, but he was proud, and
his pride held him back from declaring his sentiments.

It was not long to be endured. He became anxious. Dorothy was ill. Sir
Ronald Bury had sent him word of that in a letter which was calculated
to stab the baron to the very heart. He grew restless; his conscience
pricked him day and night, until, unable to bear it any longer, he
declared himself.

"Maude," he said, as together they sat in the lonely dining-room,
"Dorothy has been a month gone now."

"Yes," she carelessly replied.

"And I hear she is sorely ill."

"Like enough," said Lady Vernon, not unwilling to make the knight
suffer a little, for she had not forgiven him yet. "She was ill enough
when she went."

"Then," returned the baron, "she shall come back; we cannot do without
her."

Lady Vernon turned sharply round to expostulate with her lord, but
seeing his forbidding countenance, she desisted, and her silence Sir
George tacitly construed as acquiescence.

"I shall send for her this very day," pursued the good old knight, "we
must try to forget the past, Maude--for, in good soo