“That you already know.  But you cannot know how much I love you.  I myself don’t know.  John, I seem to have turned all to love.  ’However much there is of me, that much there is of love for you.  As the salt is in every drop of the sea, so love is in every part of my being; but John,” she continued, drooping her head and speaking regretfully, “the salt in the sea is not unmixed with many things hurtful.”  Her face blushed with shame and she continued limpingly:  “And my love is not—­is not without evil.  Oh, John, I feel deep shame in telling you, but my love is terribly jealous.  At times a jealousy comes over me so fierce and so distracting that under its influence I am mad, John, mad.  I then see nothing in its true light; my eyes seem filled with—­with blood, and all things appear red or black and—­and—­oh!  John, I pray you never again cause me jealousy.  It makes a demon of me.”

You may well know that John was nonplussed.

“I cause you jealousy?” he asked in surprise.  “When did I—­” But Dorothy interrupted him, her eyes flashing darkly and a note of fierceness in her voice.  He saw for himself the effects of jealousy upon her.

“That white—­white Scottish wanton!  God’s curse be upon her!  She tried to steal you from me.”

“Perhaps she did,” replied John, smilingly, “of that I do not know.  But this I do know, and you, Dorothy, must know it too henceforth and for all time to come.  No woman can steal my love from you.  Since I gave you my troth I have been true to you; I have not been false even in one little thought.”

“I feel sure, John, that you have not been untrue to me,” said the girl with a faint smile playing about her lips; “but—­but you remember the strange woman at Bowling Green Gate whom you would have—­”

“Dorothy, I hope you have not come to my dungeon for the purpose of making me more wretched than I already am?”

“No, no, John, forgive me,” she cried softly; “but John, I hate her, I hate her! and I want you to promise that you too will hate her.”

“I promise,” said John, “though, you have had no cause for jealousy of Queen Mary.”

“Perhaps—­not,” she replied hesitatingly.  “I have never thought,” the girl continued poutingly, “that you did anything of which I should be jealous; but she—­she—­oh, I hate her!  Let us not talk about her.  Jennie Faxton told me—­I will talk about her, and you shall not stop me—­Jennie Faxton told me that the white woman made love to you and caused you to put your arm about her waist one evening on the battlements and-”

“Jennie told you a lie,” said John.

“Now don’t interrupt me,” the girl cried nervously, almost ready for tears, “and I will try to tell you all.  Jennie told me the—­the white woman looked up to you this fashion,” and the languishing look she gave John in imitation of Queen Mary was so beautiful and comical that he could do nothing but laugh and cover her face with kisses, then laugh again and love the girl more deeply and yet more deeply with each new breath he drew.  Dorothy was not sure whether she wanted to laugh or to cry, so she did both.