But Dorothy, neither easily moved to wrath, nor yet given to the nourishing of active resentment, was not therefore at all the readier to forget the results of moral difference, or to permit any nearer approach on the part of one such as her cousin had shown himself.  As long as he continued so self-serene and unashamed, what satisfaction to her or what good to him could there be in it, even were he to content himself with the cousinly friendship which, as soon as he was capable of it, she was willing to afford him?  As it was now, she granted him only distant recognition in company, neither seeking nor avoiding him; and as to all opportunity of private speech, entirely shunning him.  For some time, in the vanity of his experience, he never doubted that these were only feminine arts, or that when she judged him sufficiently punished, she would relax the severity of her behaviour and begin to make him amends.  But this demeanour of hers endured so long, and continued so uniform, that at length he began to doubt the universality of his experience, and to dread lest the maiden should actually prove what he had never found maiden before, inexorable.  He did not reflect that he had given her no ground whatever for altering her judgment or feeling with regard to him.  But in truth her thoughts rarely turned to him at all, and while his were haunting her as one who was taking pleasure in the idea that she was making him feel her resentment, she was simply forgetting him, busy perhaps with some self-offered question that demanded an answer, or perhaps brooding a little over the past, in which the form of Richard now came and went at its will.

So long as Rowland imagined the existence of a quarrel, he imagined therein a bond between them; when he became convinced that no quarrel, only indifference, or perhaps despisal, separated them, he began again to despair, and felt himself urged once more to speak.  Seizing therefore an opportunity in such manner that she could not escape him without attracting very undesirable attention, he began a talk upon the old basis.

‘Wilt thou then forgive me nevermore, Dorothy?’, he said humbly.

‘For what, Mr. Scuclamore?’

‘I mean for offending thee with rude words.’

‘Truly I have forgotten them.’

‘Then shall we be friends?’

‘Nay, that follows not.’

‘What quarrel then hast thou with me?’

’I have no quarrel with thee; yet is there one thing I cannot forgive thee.’

’And what is that, cousin?  Believe me I know not.  I need but to know, and I will humble myself.’

’That would serve nothing, for how should I forgive thee for being unworthy?  For such thing there is no forgiveness.  Cease thou to be unworthy, and then is there nothing to forgive.  I were an unfriendly friend, Rowland, did I befriend the man who befriendeth not himself.’

‘I understand thee not, cousin.’

’And I understand not thy not understanding.  Therefore can there be no communion between us.’