She did not reply to that.  Then she faced me suddenly.

“Richard, I know now why you insisted upon going back.  It was because you would not desert your sea-captain.  Comyn and Mr. Fox have told me, and they admire you for it as much as I.”

What language is worthy to describe her as she was then in that pose, with her head high, as she was wont to ride over the field after the hounds.  Hers was in truth no beauty of stone, but the beauty of force, —­of life itself.

“Dorothy,” I cried; “Dorothy, I stayed because I love you.  There, I have said it again, what has not passed my lips since we were children.  What has been in my heart ever since.”

I stopped, awed.  For she had stepped back, out on the balcony.  She hid her head in her hands, and I saw her breast shaken as with sobs.  I waited what seemed a day,—­a year.  Then she raised her face and looked at me through the tears shining in her eyes.

“Richard,” she said sadly, “why, why did you ever tell me?  Why can we not always be playmates?”

The words I tried to say choked me.  I could not speak for sorrow, for very bitterness.  And yet I might have known!  I dared not look at her again.

“Dear Richard,” I heard her say, “God alone understands how it hurts me to give you pain.  Had I only foreseen—­”

“Had you only foreseen,” I said quickly.

“I should never have let you speak.”

Her words came steadily, but painfully.  And when I raised my eyes she met them bravely.

“You must have seen,” I cried.  “These years I have loved you, nor could I have hidden it if I had wished.  But I have little—­to offer you,” I went on cruelly, for I knew not what I said; “you who may have English lands and titles for the consenting.  I was a fool.”

Her tears started again.  And at sight of them I was seized with such remorse that I could have bitten my tongue in two.

“Forgive me, Dorothy, if you can,” I implored.  “I did not mean it.  Nor did I presume to think you loved me.  I have adored,—­I shall be content to adore from far below.  And I stayed,—­I stayed that I might save you if a danger threatened.”

“Danger!” she exclaimed, catching her breath.

“I will come to the point,” I said.  “I stayed to save you from the Duke of Chartersea.”

She grasped the balcony rail, and I think would have fallen but for my arm.  Then she straightened, and only the quiver of her lip marked the effort.

“To save me from the Duke of Chartersea?” she said, so coldly that my conviction was shaken.  “Explain yourself, sir.”

“You cannot love him!” I cried, amazed.

She flashed upon me a glance I shall never forget.

“Richard Carvel,” she said, “you have gone too far.  Though you have been my friend all my life, there are some things which even you cannot say to me.”

And she left me abruptly and went into the house, her head flung back.  And I followed in a tumult of mortification and wounded pride, in such a state of dejection that I wished I had never been born.  But hers was a nature of surprises, and impulsive, like my own.  Beside the cabinet she turned, calm again, all trace of anger vanished from her face.  Drawing a hawthorn sprig from a porcelain vase I had given her, she put it in my hand.