“The iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain,” thought I.

“I believed,” continued the girl, “that if he would exert his will I might have relief; but there again I find trouble, for I cannot bring myself to ask him to will it.  The feeling within me is like a sore heart:  painful as it is, I must keep it.  Without it I fear I could not live.”

After this outburst there was a long pause during which she walked by my side, seemingly unconscious that I was near her.  I had known for some time that Dorothy was interested in Manners; but I was not prepared to see such a volcano of passion.  I need not descant upon the evils and dangers of the situation.  The thought that first came to me was that Sir George would surely kill his daughter before he would allow her to marry a son of Rutland.  I was revolving in my mind how I should set about to mend the matter when Dorothy again spoke.

“Tell me, Cousin Malcolm, can a man throw a spell over a woman and bewitch her?”

“I do not know.  I have never heard of a man witch,” I responded.

“No?” asked the girl.

“But,” I continued, “I do know that a woman may bewitch a man.  John Manners, I doubt not, could also testify knowingly on the subject by this time.”

“Oh, do you think he is bewitched?” cried Dorothy, grasping my arm and looking eagerly into my face.  “If I could bewitch him, I would do it.  I would deal with the devil gladly to learn the art.  I would not care for my soul.  I do not fear the future.  The present is a thousand-fold dearer to me than either the past or the future.  I care not what comes hereafter.  I want him now.  Ah, Malcolm, pity my shame.”

She covered her face with her hands, and after a moment continued:  “I am not myself.  I belong not to myself.  But if I knew that he also suffers, I do believe my pain would be less.”

“I think you may set your heart at rest upon that point,” I answered.  “He, doubtless, also suffers.”

“I hope so,” she responded, unconscious of the selfish wish she had expressed.  “If he does not, I know not what will be my fate.”

I saw that I had made a mistake in assuring her that John also suffered, and I determined to correct it later on, if possible.

Dorothy was silent, and I said, “You have not told me about the golden heart.”

“I will tell you,” she answered.  “We rode for two hours or more, and talked of the weather and the scenery, until there was nothing more to be said concerning either.  Then Sir John told me of the court in London, where he has always lived, and of the queen whose hair, he says, is red, but not at all like mine.  I wondered if he would speak of the beauty of my hair, but he did not.  He only looked at it.  Then he told me about the Scottish queen whom he once met when he was on an embassy to Edinburgh.  He described her marvellous beauty, and I believe he sympathizes with her cause—­that is, with her cause in Scotland.  He says she has no good cause in England.  He is true to our queen.  Well—­well he talked so interestingly that I could have listened a whole month—­yes, all my life.”