She repeated her request.

“Certainly,” returned John, “I—­I knew what you said—­but—­but you surprise me.”

“Yes,” said brazen Dorothy, “I have surprised myself.”

John, in his haste to satisfy Dolcy’s thirst, dashed the water against the skirt of Dorothy’s habit, and was profuse in his apologies.

“Do not mention it,” said Dorothy.  “I like a damp habit.  The wind cannot so easily blow it about,” and she laughed as she shook the garment to free it of the water.  Dolcy refused to drink, and Dorothy having no excuse to linger at the well, drew up her reins and prepared to leave.  While doing so, she said:—­

“Do you often come to Overhaddon?” Her eager eyes shone like red coals, and looking at John, she awaited smilingly his response.

“Seldom,” answered John; “not often.  I mean every day—­that is, if I may come.”

“Any one may come to the village whenever he wishes to do so,” responded Dorothy, laughing too plainly at Sir John’s confusion.  “Is it seldom, or not often, or every day that you come?” In her overconfidence she was chaffing him.  He caught the tone, and looked quickly into the girl’s eyes.  Her gaze could not stand against John’s for a moment, and the long lashes drooped to shade her eyes from the fierce light of his.

“I said I would come to Overhaddon every day,” he returned; “and although I must have appeared very foolish in my confusion, you cannot misunderstand the full meaning of my words.”

In John’s boldness and in the ring of his voice Dorothy felt the touch of her master, against whom she well knew all the poor force she could muster would be utterly helpless.  She was frightened, and said:—­

“I—­I must go.  Good-by.”

When she rode away from him she thought:  “I believed because of his confusion that I was the stronger.  I could not stand against him for a moment.  Holy Virgin! what have I done, and to what am I coming?”

You may now understand the magnitude of the task which Sir George had set for me when he bade me marry his daughter and kill the Rutlands.  I might perform the last-named feat, but dragon fighting would be mere child’s play compared with the first, while the girl’s heart was filled with the image of another man.

I walked forward to meet Dorothy, leaving Madge near the farrier’s shop.

“Dorothy, are you mad?  What have you been doing?” I asked.

“Could you not see?” she answered, under her breath, casting a look of warning toward Madge and a glance of defiance at me.  “Are you, too, blind?  Could you not see what I was doing?”

“Yes,” I responded.

“Then why do you ask?”