‘Thou dost me scant justice, cousin,’ said Rowland, ’maintaining that I love but myself or for mine own ends.  I know that love thee better than so.’

’For thine own sake, I would, might I but believe it, be glad of the assurance.  But—­’

Amanda’s behaviour to her having at last roused counter observation and speculation on Dorothy’s part, she had become suddenly aware that there was an understanding between her and Rowland.  It was gradually, however, that the question rose in her mind:  could these two have been the nightly intruders on the forbidden ground of the workshop, and afterwards the victims of the watershoot?  But the suspicion grew to all but a conviction.  Latterly she had observed that their behaviour to each other was changed, also that Amanda’s aversion to herself seemed to have gathered force.  And one thing she had found remarkable—­that Rowland revealed no concern for Amanda’s misfortunes, or anxiety about her fate.  With all these things potentially present in her mind, she came all at once to the resolution of attempting a bold stroke.

‘—­But,’ Dorothy went on, ’when I think how thou didst bear thee with mistress Amanda—­’

‘My precious Dorothy!’ exclaimed Scudamore, filled with a sudden gush of hope, ’thou wilt never be so unjust to thyself as to be jealous of her!  She is to me as nothing—­as if she had never been; nor care I forsooth if the devil hath indeed flown away with her bodily, as they will have it in the hall and the guard-room.’

’Thou didst seem to hold friendly enough converse with her while she was yet one of us.’

’Ye-e-s.  But she had no heart like thee, Dorothy, as I soon discovered.  She had indeed a pretty wit of her own, but that was all.  And then she was spiteful.  She hated thee, Dorothy.’

He spoke of her as one dead.

’How knewest thou that?  Wast thou then so far in her confidence, and art now able to talk of her thus?  Where is thine own heart, Mr. Scudamore?’

‘In thy bosom, lovely Dorothy.’

’Thou mistakest.  But mayhap thou dost imagine I picked it up that night thou didst lay it at mistress Amanda’s feet in my lord’s workshop in the keep?’

Dorothy’s hatred of humbug—­which was not the less in existence then that they had not the ugly word to express the uglier thing—­enabled her to fix her eyes on him as she spoke, and keep them fixed when she had ended.  He turned pale—­visibly pale through the shadowy night, nor attempted to conceal his confusion.  It is strange how self-conviction will wait upon foreign judgment, as if often only the general conscience were powerful enough to wake the individual one.

‘Or perhaps,’ she continued, ’it was torn from thee by the waters that swept thee from the bridge, as thou didst venture with her yet again upon the forbidden ground.’

He hung his head, and stood before her like a chidden child.

‘Think’st thou,’ she went on, ’that my lord would easily pardon such things?’