Sir George stood in open-eyed wonder, and Dorothy continued:  “You cannot keep him from me.  I shall see him, and I will have him despite you.  I tell you again, I have seen him two score times since you tried to spy upon us at Bowling Green Gate, and I will see him whenever I choose, and I will wed him when I am ready to do so.  You cannot prevent it.  You can only be forsworn, oath upon oath; and if I were you, I would stop swearing.”

Sir George, as was usual with him in those sad times, was inflamed with drink, and Dorothy’s conduct, I must admit, was maddening.  In the midst of her taunting Thomas stepped into the room bearing an armful of fagots.  Sir George turned to him and said:—­

“Go and tell Welch to bring a set of manacles.”

“For Mistress Dorothy?” Thomas asked, surprised into the exclamation.

“Curse you, do you mean to bandy words with me, you scum?” cried Sir George.

He snatched a fagot from John and drew back his arm to strike him.  John took one step back from Sir George and one step nearer to Dorothy.

“Yes, Thomas,” said Dorothy, sneeringly, “bring Welch with the manacles for me.  My dear father would put me in the dungeon out of the reach of other men, so that he may keep me safely for my unknown lover.  Go, Thomas.  Go, else father will again be forsworn before Christ and upon his knighthood.”

“This before a servant!  I’ll gag you, you hellish vixen,” cried Sir George.  Then I am sure he knew not what he did.  “Curse you!” he cried, as he held the fagot upraised and rushed upon Dorothy.  John, with his arms full of fagots, could not avert the blow which certainly would have killed the girl, but he could take it.  He sprang between Dorothy and her father, the fagot fell upon his head, and he sank to the floor.  In his fall John’s wig dropped off, and when the blood began to flow from the wound Dorothy kneeled beside his prostrate form.  She snatched the great bush of false beard from his face and fell to kissing his lips and his hands in a paroxysm of passionate love and grief.  Her kisses she knew to be a panacea for all ills John could be heir to, and she thought they would heal even the wound her father had given, and stop the frightful outpouring of John’s life-blood.  The poor girl, oblivious of all save her wounded lover, murmured piteously:—­

“John, John, speak to me; ’tis Dorothy.”  She placed her lips near his ear and whispered:  “’Tis Dorothy, John.  Speak to her.”  But she received no response.  Then came a wild light to her eyes and she cried aloud:  “John, ’tis Dorothy.  Open your eyes.  Speak to me, John! oh, for God’s sake speak to me!  Give some little sign that you live,” but John was silent.  “My God, my God!  Help, help!  Will no one help me save this man?  See you not that his life is flowing away?  This agony will kill me.  John, my lover, my lord, speak to me.  Ah, his heart, his heart!  I will know.”  She tore from his breast the leathern doublet and placed her ear over his heart.  “Thank God, it beats!” she cried in a frenzied whisper, as she kissed his breast and turned her ear again to hear his heart’s welcome throbbing.  Then she tried to lift him in her arms and succeeded in placing his head in her lap.  It was a piteous scene.  God save me from witnessing another like it.