"John, do not leave me. Do not leave me." As she spoke, she reached an open space among the trees and John turned toward her. Her hat had fallen off, and the red golden threads of her hair, freed from their fastenings, streamed behind her. Never before had a vision of such exquisite loveliness sped through the moonbeams. So entrancing was her beauty to John that he stood motionless in admiration. He did not go to meet her as he should have done, and perhaps as he would have done had his senses not been wrapped in benumbing wonderment. His eyes were unable to interpret to his brain all her marvellous beauty, and his other senses abandoning their proper functions had hastened to the assistance of his sight He saw, he heard, he felt her loveliness. Thus occupied he did not move, so Dorothy ran to him and fell upon his breast. "You did not come to meet me," she sobbed. "You made me come all the way, to forgive you. Cruel, cruel!" John held the girl in his arms, but he did not dare to kiss her, and his self-denial soon brought its reward. He had not expected that she would come a beggar to him. The most he had dared to hope was that she would listen to his prayer for forgiveness. With all his worldly wisdom John had not learned the fact that inconstancy does not destroy love in the one who suffers by reason of it; nor did he know of the exquisite pain-touched happiness which comes to a gentle, passionate heart such as Dorothy's from the mere act of forgiving. "Is it possible you can forgive me for the miserable lies I have uttered?" asked John, almost unconscious of the words he was speaking. "Is it possible you can forgive me for uttering those lies, Dorothy?" he repeated. She laid her head upon his breast, and softly passing her hand over the lace of his doublet, whispered:-- "If I could believe they were lies, I could easily forgive you," she answered between low sobs and soft sighs. Though she was a woman, the sweet essence of childhood was in her heart. "But you cannot believe me, even when I tell you that I spoke not the truth," answered John, with growing faith in his system of passive repentance. Again came the sighs, and a few struggling, childish sobs. "It is easy for us to believe that which we long to believe," she said. Then she turned her face upward to him, and John's reward was altogether disproportioned to the self-denial he had exercised a few minutes before. She rewarded him far beyond his deserts; and after a pause she said mischievously:-- "You told me that you were a bold man with women, and I know that at least that part of what you said was untrue, for you are a bashful man, John, you are downright bashful. It is I who have been bold. You were too timid to woo me, and I so longed for you that I--I--was not timid." "For God's sake, Dorothy, I beg you to have pity and to make no jest of me. Your kindness almost kills me, and your ridicule--"