But he continued to advance with unmoved front, as if she had been the Satanas of his orthodoxy, which, indeed, she did not faintly image.  She moved aside with a savage sound in her throat, and he threw the door wide open.  There sat Dorothy Fair before them at her dimity dressing-table, with all her slender body huddled forward and resting seemingly upon her two bare white arms, which encompassed her bowed head like sweet rings.  Not a glimpse of Dorothy’s face could be seen under the wide flow of her fair curls, which parted only a little over the curve of one pink shoulder.  Dorothy wore her wedding-gown of embroidered India muslin; but her satin slippers were widely separated upon the floor, as if she had kicked them hither and thither; and on the bed, in a great, careless, fluffy heap, lay her wedding-veil, as if it had been tossed there.

Elvira Gordon, at a signal from Parson Fair, entered the room past the sullen negress, who rolled her eyes and muttered low, and went close to the girl at the dressing-table.

“Dorothy!” said Mrs. Gordon.

Dorothy made no sign that she heard.

“Dorothy, do you know it is an hour after the time set for your wedding?”

Dorothy was so still that instinctively Mrs. Gordon bent close over her and listened; but she heard quite plainly the soft pant of her breath, and knew she had not fainted.

Mrs. Gordon straightened herself and looked at her.  It was strange how that delicate, girlish form under the soft flow of fair locks and muslin draperies should express, in all its half-suggested curves, such utter obstinacy that it might have been the passive unresponsiveness of marble.  Even that soft tumult of agitated breath could not alter that impression.  When Mrs. Gordon spoke again her words seemed to echo back in her own ears, as if she had spoken in an empty room.

“Dorothy Fair,” said she, with a kind of solemn authority, “neither I nor any other human being can look into your heart and see why you do this; and you owe it to my son, who has your solemn promise, and to your father, whose only child you are, to speak.  If you are sick, say so; if at the last minute you have a doubt as to your affection for Burr, say so.  My son will keep his promise to you with his life, but he will not force himself upon you against your wishes.  You need fear nothing; but you must either speak and give us your reason for this, or get up and put on your wedding-veil and your shoes, and come down, where they have been waiting over an hour.  You cannot put such a slight upon my son, or your father, or all these people, any longer.  You do not think what you are doing, Dorothy.”

Mrs. Gordon’s even, weighty voice softened to motherly appeal in the closing words.  Dorothy remained quite silent and motionless.  Then Burr gave a great sigh of impatient misery, and strode across to Dorothy, and bent low over her, touching her curls with his lips, and whispered.  She did not stir.  “Won’t you, Dorothy?” he said, gently, then quite aloud; and then again, “Have you forgotten what you promised me, Dorothy?” and still again, “Are you sick?  Have I offended you in any way?  Can’t you tell me, Dorothy?”