Sir George took to his bottle and remained with it till his servants put him to bed.  I slipped away from him and smoked a pipe in front of the kitchen fire.  Then I went early to my bed in Eagle Tower.

Dorothy went to her apartments.  There she lay upon her bed, and for a time her heart was like flint.  Soon she thought of her precious golden heart pierced with a silver arrow, and tears came to her eyes as she drew the priceless treasure from her breast and breathed upon it a prayer to the God of love for help.  Her heart was soft again, soft only as hers could be, and peace came to her as she pressed John’s golden heart to her lips and murmured over and over the words, “My love, my love, my love,” and murmuring fell asleep.

I wonder how many of the countless women of this world found peace, comfort, and ecstasy in breathing those magic words yesterday?  How many have found them to-day?  How many will find them to-morrow?  No one can tell; but this I know, they come to every woman at some time in her life, righteously or unrighteously, as surely as her heart pulses.

That evening Jennie Faxton bore a letter to John, informing him of the projected Stanley marriage.  It asked him to meet the writer at Bowling Green Gate, and begged him to help her if he could.

The small and intermittent remnants of conscience, sense of duty, and caution which still remained in John’s head—­I will not say in John’s heart, for that was full to overflowing with something else—­were quickly banished by the unwelcome news in Dorothy’s letter.  His first impulse was to kill Stanley; but John Manners was not an assassin, and a duel would make public all he wished to conceal.  He wished to conceal, among other things, his presence at Rutland.  He had two reasons for so desiring.  First in point of time was the urgent purpose with which he had come to Derbyshire.  That purpose was to further a plan for the rescue of Mary Stuart and to bring her incognito to Rutland Castle as a refuge until Elizabeth could be persuaded to receive her.  Of this plan I knew nothing till after the disastrous attempt to carry it out, of which I shall hereafter tell you.  The other reason why John wished his presence at Rutland unknown was that if he were supposed to be in London, no one would suspect him of knowing Dorothy Vernon.

You must remember there had been no overt love-making between John and Dorothy up to that time.  The scene at the gate approached perilously near it, but the line between concealment and confession had not been crossed.  Mind you, I say there had been no love-making between them.  While Dorothy had gone as far in that direction as a maiden should dare go—­and to tell the exact truth, a great deal farther—­John had remained almost silent for reasons already given you.  He also felt a fear of the girl, and failed to see in her conduct those signs of intense love which would have been plainly discernible had not his perceptions been