‘Richard,’ returned Dorothy, ’thou hast thyself taken from my words the credit:  I say to thee again, satisfy thyself.’

‘Dorothy, what am I to do?’ he cried.

‘Thy duty, Richard,’ she answered.

‘My duty is to search thee,’ he said.

Dorothy was silent.  Her heart was beating terribly, but she would see the end of the path she had taken ere she would think of turning.  And she would trust Richard.  Would she then have him fail of his duty?  Would she have the straight-going Richard swerve?  Even in the face of her maidenly fears, she would encounter anything rather than Richard should for her sake be false.  But Richard would not turn aside.  Neither would he shame her.  He would find some way.

‘Do then thy duty, Richard,’ she said, and sliding from her saddle, she stood before him, one hand grasping Dick’s mane.

There was no defiance in her tone.  She was but submitting, assured of deliverance.

What was Richard to do?  Never man was more perplexed.  He dared not let her pass.  He dared no more touch her than if she had been Luna herself standing there.  He would not had he dared, and yet he must.  She was silent, seemed to herself cruel, and began bitterly to accuse herself.  She saw his hazel eyes slowly darken, then began to glitter—­was it with gathering tears?  The glitter grew and overflowed.  The man was weeping!  The tenderness of their common childhood rushed back upon her in a great wave out of the past, ran into the rising billow of present passion, and swelled it up till it towered and broke; she threw her arm round his neck and kissed him.  He stood in a dumb ecstasy.  Then terror lest he should think she was tempting him to brave his conscience overpowered her.

‘Richard, do thy duty.  Regard not me,’ she cried in anguish.

Richard gave a strange laugh as he answered,

’There was a time when I had doubted the sun in heaven as soon as thy word, Dorothy.  This is surely an evil time.  Tell me, yea or nay, hast thou missives to the king or any of his people?  Palter not with me.’

But such an appeal was what Dorothy would least willingly encounter.  The necessity yet difficulty of escaping it stimulated the wits that had been overclouded by feeling.  A light appeared.  She broke into a real merry laugh.

‘What a pair of fools we are, Richard!’ she said.  ’Is there never an honest woman of thy persuasion near—­one who would show me no favour?  Let such an one search me, and tell thee the truth.’

‘Doubtless,’ answered Richard, laughing very differently now at his stupidity, yet immediately committing a blunder:  ’there is mother Rees!’

‘What a baby thou art, Richard!’ rejoined Dorothy.  ’She is as good a friend of mine as of thine, and would doubtless favour the wiles of a woman.’

’True, true!  Thou wast always the keener of wit, Dorothy—­as becometh a woman.  What say’st thou then to dame Upstill?  She is even now at the farm there, whence she watches over her husband while he watches over Raglan.  Will she answer thy turn?’