After a long pause, Dorothy with downcast eyes said, “I am full of shame, my lord, to consent to this meeting, and then find the way to it, but—­but—­” ("Yes, yes, my Venus, my gracious one,” interrupted the earl)—­“but if my father would permit me to—­to leave the Hall for a few minutes, I might—­oh, it is impossible, my lord.  I must not think of it.”

“I pray you, I beg you,” pleaded Leicester.  “Tell me, at least, what you might do if your father would permit you to leave the Hall.  I would gladly fall to my knees, were it not for the assembled company.”

With reluctance in her manner and gladness in her heart, the girl said:—­

“If my father would permit me to leave the Hall, I might—­only for a moment, meet you at the stile, in the northeast corner of the garden back of the terrace half an hour hence.  But he would not permit me, and—­and, my lord, I ought not to go even should father consent.”

“I will ask your father’s permission for you.  I will seek him at once,” said the eager earl.

“No, no, my lord, I pray you, do not,” murmured Dorothy, with distracting little troubled wrinkles in her forehead.  Her trouble was more for fear lest he would not than for dread that he would.

“I will, I will,” cried his Lordship, softly; “I insist, and you shall not gainsay me.”

The girl’s only assent was silence, but that was sufficient for so enterprising a gallant as the noble Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.  So he at once went to seek Sir George.

The old gentleman, although anxious to give Leicester a chance to press his suit with Dorothy, at first refused, but Leicester said:—­

“My intentions are honorable, Sir George.  If I can win your daughter’s heart, it is my wish, if the queen’s consent can be obtained, to ask Mistress Vernon’s hand in marriage.”

Sir George’s breast swelled with pride and satisfaction, for Leicester’s words were as near an offer of marriage as it was in his power to make.  So the earl received, for Dorothy, permission to leave the Hall, and eagerly carried it to her.

“Your father consents gladly,” said the earl.  “Will you meet me half an hour hence at the stile?”

“Yes,” murmured the girl, with shamelessly cast down eyes and drooping head.  Leicester bowed himself away, and fully fifteen minutes before the appointed time left the Hall to wait in the cold at the stile for Dorothy.

Before the expiration of the tedious half hour our meek maiden went to her father and with deep modesty and affected shame said:—­

“Father, is it your wish that I go out of the Hall for a few minutes to meet—­to meet—­” She apparently could not finish the sentence, so modest and shame-faced was she.

“Yes, Doll, I wish you to go on this condition:  if Leicester asks you to marry him, you shall consent to be his wife.”

“I promise, father,” replied the dutiful girl, “if Lord Leicester asks me this night, I will be his wife.”