“I did give her the heart, Sir George,” I said, interrupting him.  “It was my mother’s.”  I had caught the lying infection.  But Sir George, in his violence, was a person to incite lies.  He of course had good cause for his anger.  Dorothy had lied to him.  Of that there could be no doubt; but her deception was provoked by his own conduct and by the masterful love that had come upon her.  I truly believe that prior to the time of her meeting with Manners she had never spoken an untruth, nor since that time I also believe, except when driven to do so by the same motive.  Dorothy was not a thief, but I am sure she would have stolen for the sake of her lover.  She was gentle and tender to a degree that only a woman can attain; but I believe she would have done murder in cold blood for the sake of her love.  Some few women there are in whose hearts God has placed so great an ocean of love that when it reaches its flood all other attributes of heart and soul and mind are ingulfed in its mighty flow.  Of this rare class was Dorothy.

“God is love,” says the Book.

“The universe is God,” says the philosopher.  “Therefore,” as the mathematician would say, “love is the universe.”  To that proposition Dorothy was a corollary.

The servants were standing open-eyed about us in the kitchen.

“Let us go to the dining hall,” I suggested.  Sir George led the way by the stone steps to the screens, and from the screens to the small banquet hail, and I followed, leading Dorothy by the hand.

The moment of respite from her father’s furious attack gave her time in which to collect her scattered senses.

When we reached the banquet hall, and after I had closed the door, Sir George turned upon his daughter, and with oath upon oath demanded to know the name of her lover.  Dorothy stood looking to the floor and said nothing.  Sir George strode furiously to and fro across the room.

“Curse the day you were born, you wanton huzzy.  Curse you! curse you!  Tell me the name of the man who wrote this letter,” he cried, holding toward her the fragment of paper.  “Tell me his name or, I swear it before God, I swear it upon my knighthood, I will have you flogged in the upper court till you bleed.  I would do it if you were fifty times my child.”

Then Dorothy awakened.  The girl was herself again.  Now it was only for herself she had to fear.

Her heart kept saying, “This for his sake, this for his sake.”  Out of her love came fortitude, and out of her fortitude came action.

Her father’s oath had hardly been spoken till the girl tore her bodice from her shoulders.  She threw the garment to the floor and said:—­

“I am ready for the whip, I am ready.  Who is to do the deed, father, you or the butcher?  It must be done.  You have sworn it, and I swear before God and by my maidenhood that I will not tell you the name of the man who wrote the letter.  I love him, and before I will tell you his name or forego his love for me, or before I will abate one jot or tittle of my love for him, I will gladly die by the whip in your hand.  I am ready for the whip, father.  I am ready.  Let us have it over quickly.”