“Never,” cried the girl, clasping her hands about his neck and pressing her lips gently upon his.  “Never.  There, that will soothe you, won’t it, John?”

It did soothe him, and in the next moment, John, almost frenzied with joy, hurt the girl by the violence of his embraces; but she, woman-like, found her heaven in the pain.

They went back to the stone bench beside the gate, and after a little time Dorothy said:—­

“But tell me, John, would you have kissed the other woman?  Would you really have done it?”

John’s honesty certainly was good policy in that instance.  The adroit girl had set a trap for him.

“I suppose I would,” answered John, with a groan.

“It hurts me to hear the fact,” said Dorothy, sighing; “but it pleases me to hear the truth.  I know all else you tell me is true.  I was trying you when I asked the question, for I certainly knew what you intended to do.  A woman instinctively knows when a man is going to—­to—­when anything of that sort is about to happen.”

“How does she know?” asked John.

Rocks and breakers ahead for Dorothy.

“I cannot tell you,” replied the girl, naively, “but she knows.”

“Perhaps it is the awakened desire in her own heart which forewarns her,” said John, stealthily seeking from Dorothy a truth that would pain him should he learn it.

“I suppose that is partly the source of her knowledge,” replied the knowing one, with a great show of innocence in her manner.  John was in no position to ask impertinent questions, nor had he any right to grow angry at unpleasant discoveries; but he did both, although for a time he suppressed the latter.

“You believe she is sure to know, do you?” he asked.

“Usually,” she replied.  “Of course there are times when—­when it happens so suddenly that—­”

John angrily sprang to his feet, took a few hurried steps in front of Dorothy, who remained demurely seated with her eyes cast down, and then again he took his place beside her on the stone bench.  He was trembling with anger and jealousy.  The devil was in the girl that night for mischief.

“I suppose you speak from the fulness of your experience,” demanded John, in tones that would have been insulting had they not been pleasing to the girl.  She had seen the drift of John’s questions at an early stage of the conversation, and his easily aroused jealousy was good proof to her of his affection.  After all, she was in no danger from rocks and breakers.  She well knew the currents, eddies, rocks, and shoals of the sea she was navigating, although she had never before sailed it.  Her fore-mothers, all the way back to Eve, had been making charts of those particular waters for her especial benefit.  Why do we, a slow-moving, cumbersome army of men, continue to do battle with the foe at whose hands defeat is always our portion?

“Experience?” queried Dorothy, her head turned to one side in a half-contemplative attitude.  “Experience?  Of course that is the only way we learn anything.”