Many persons, I fear, will condemn me for advising Dorothy to deceive her father; but what would you have had me do?  Should I have told her to marry Stanley?  Certainly not.  Had I done so, my advice would have availed nothing.  Should I have advised her to antagonize her father, thereby keeping alive his wrath, bringing trouble to herself and bitter regret to him?  Certainly not.  The only course left for me to advise was the least of three evils—­a lie.  Three evils must be very great indeed when a lie is the least of them.  In the vast army of evils with which this world swarms the lie usually occupies a proud position in the front rank.  But at times conditions arise when, coward-like, he slinks to the rear and evils greater than he take precedence.  In such sad case I found Dorothy, and I sought help from my old enemy, the lie.  Dorothy agreed with me and consented to do all in her power to deceive her father, and what she could not do to that end was not worth doing.

Dorothy was anxious about John’s condition, and sent Jennie Faxton to Bowling Green, hoping a letter would be there for her.  Jennie soon returned with a letter, and Dorothy once more was full of song, for John’s letter told her that he was fairly well and that he would by some means see her soon again despite all opposition.

“At our next meeting, my fair mistress,” John said in the letter, “you must be ready to come with me.  I will wait no longer for you.  In fairness to me and to yourself you shall not ask me to wait.  I will accept no more excuses.  You must come with me when next we meet.”

“Ah, well,” said Dorothy to Madge, “if I must go with him, I must.  Why did he not talk in that fashion when we rode out together the last time?  I like to be made to do what I want to do.  He was foolish not to make me consent, or better still would it have been had he taken the reins of my horse and ridden off with me, with or against my will.  I might have screamed, and I might have fought him, but I could not have hurt him, and he would have had his way, and—­and,” with a sigh, “I should have had my way.”

After a brief pause devoted to thought, she continued:—­

“If I were a man and were wooing a woman, I would first learn what she wanted to do and then—­and then, by my word, I would make her do it.”

I went from Dorothy’s room to breakfast, where I found Sir George.  I took my seat at the table and he said:—­

“Who, in God’s name, suppose you, could have taken the keys from my pillow?”

“Is there any one whom you suspect?” I asked for lack of anything else to say.

“I at first thought, of course, that Dorothy had taken them,” he answered.  “But Madge would not lie, neither would my sister.  Dorothy would not hesitate to lie herself blue in the face, but for some reason I believed her when she told me she knew nothing of the affair.  Her words sounded like truth for once.”