That was crowding the girl into close quarters, but she did not flinch.

“Which way did he go, father?” she asked, with a fine show of carelessness in her manner, but with a feeling of excruciating fear in her breast.  She well knew the wisdom of the maxim, “Never confess.”

“He went northward,” answered Sir George.

“Inside the wall?” asked Dorothy, beginning again to breathe freely, for she knew that John had ridden southward.

“Inside the wall, of course,” her father replied.  “Do you suppose I could see him through the stone wall?  One should be able to see through a stone wall to keep good watch on you.”

“You might have thought you saw him through the wall,” answered the girl.  “I sometimes think of late, father, that you are losing your mind.  You drink too much brandy, my dear father.  Oh, wouldn’t it be dreadful if you were to lose your mind?” She rose as she spoke, and going to her father began to stroke him gently with her hand.  She looked into his face with real affection; for when she deceived him, she loved him best as a partial atonement for her ill-doing.

“Wouldn’t that be dreadful?” she continued, while Sir George stood lost in bewilderment.  “Wouldn’t that be dreadful for my dear old father to lose his mind?  But I really think it must be coming to pass.  A great change has of late come over you, father.  You have for the first time in your life been unkind to me and suspicious.  Father, do you realize that you insult your daughter when you accuse her of having been in this secluded place with a man?  You would punish another for speaking so against my fair name.”

“But, Dorothy,” Sir George replied, feeling as if he were in the wrong, “Ben Shaw said that he saw you here with a man, and I saw a man pass toward Bakewell.  Who was he?  I command you to tell me his name.”

Dorothy knew that her father must have seen a man near the gate, but who he was she could not imagine.  John surely was beyond the wall and well out of sight on his way to Rowsley before her father reached the crest of Bowling Green Hill.  But it was evident that Shaw had seen John.  Evidence that a man had been at the gate was too strong to be successfully contradicted.  Facts that cannot be successfully contradicted had better be frankly admitted.  Dorothy sought through her mind for an admission that would not admit, and soon hit upon a plan which, shrewd as it seemed to be, soon brought her to grief.

“Perhaps you saw Cousin Malcolm,” said Dorothy, as the result of her mental search.  “He passed here a little time since and stopped for a moment to talk.  Perhaps you saw Malcolm, father.  You would not find fault with me because he was here, would you?”

“Dorothy, my daughter,” said Sir George, hesitatingly, “are you telling me the truth?”

Then the fair girl lifted up her beautiful head, and standing erect at her full height (it pains me to tell you this) said:  “Father, I am a Vernon.  I would not lie.”