“I will have you to the dungeon this very hour, you brazen huzzy,” cried Sir George.

“How often, father, shall I repeat that I am ready to go to the dungeon?  I am eager to obey you in all things save one.”

“You shall have your wish,” returned Sir George.  “Would that you had died ere you had disgraced your house with a low-bred dog whose name you are ashamed to utter.”

“Father, there has been no disgrace,” Dorothy answered, and her words bore the ring of truth.

“You have been meeting the fellow at secluded spots in the forest—­how frequently you have met him God only knows—­and you lied to me when you were discovered at Bowling Green Gate.”

“I would do it again gladly if I but had the chance,” answered the girl, who by that time was reckless of consequences.

“But the chance you shall not have,” retorted Sir George.

“Do not be too sure, father,” replied Dorothy.  She was unable to resist the temptation to mystify him.  “I may see him before another hour.  I will lay you this wager, father, if I do not within one hour see the man—­the man whom I love—­I will marry Lord Stanley.  If I see him within that time you shall permit me to marry him.  I have seen him two score times since the day you surprised me at the gate.”

That was a dangerous admission for the girl to make, and she soon regretted it with all her heart.  Truly she was right.  An angry brain is full of blunders.

Of course Dorothy’s words, which were so full of meaning to Madge and me, meant little to Sir George.  He looked upon them only as irritating insolence on her part.  A few minutes later, however, they became full of significance.

Sir George seemed to have forgotten the Stanley marriage and the burning of the contract in his quarrel with Dorothy over her unknown lover.

Conceive, if you can, the situation in Haddon Hall at that time.  There was love-drunk Dorothy, proud of the skill which had enabled her to outwit her wrathful father.  There was Sir George, whose mental condition, inflamed by constant drinking, bordered on frenzy because he felt that his child, whom he had so tenderly loved from the day of her birth, had disgraced herself with a low-born wretch whom she refused to name.  And there, under the same roof, lived the man who was the root and source of all the trouble.  A pretty kettle of fish!

“The wager, father, will you take it?” eagerly asked Dorothy.

Sir George, who thought that her words were spoken only to anger him, waved her off with his hands and said:—­

“I have reason to believe that I know the wretch for whose sake you have disgraced yourself.  You may be sure that I shall soon know him with certainty.  When I do, I will quickly have him in my power.  Then I will hang him to a tree on Bowling Green, and you shall see the low-born dog die.”

“He is better born than any of our house,” retorted Dorothy, who had lost all sense of caution.  “Ay, he is better born than any with whom we claim kin.”