"What was it, Dorothy?" I asked gently. "You may trust me." "He sent no word to me," the girl responded. "Jennie said she heard two gentlemen talking about me in front of the farrier's shop, and one of them said something about--oh, I don't know what it was. I can't tell you. It was all nonsense, and of course he did not mean it." "Tell me all, Dorothy," I said, seeing that she really wanted to speak. "Oh, he said something about having seen Sir George Vernon's daughter at Rowsley, and--and--I can't tell you what he said, I am too full of shame." If her cheeks told the truth, she certainly was "full of shame." "Tell me all, sweet cousin; I am sorry for you," I said. She raised her eyes to mine in quick surprise with a look of suspicion. "You may trust me, Dorothy. I say it again, you may trust me." "He spoke of my beauty and called it marvellous," said the girl. "He said that in all the world there was not another woman--oh, I can't tell you." "Yes, yes, go on, Dorothy," I insisted. "He said," she continued, "that he could think of nothing else but me day or night since he had first seen me at Rowsley--that I had bewitched him and--and--Then the other gentleman said, 'John, don't play with fire; it will burn you. Nothing good can come of it for you.'" "Did Jennie know who the gentleman was?" I asked. "No," returned Dorothy. "How do you know who he was?" "Jennie described him," she said. "How did she describe him?" I asked. "She said he was--he was the handsomest man in the world and--and that he affected her so powerfully she fell in love with him in spite of herself. The little devil, to dare! You see that describes him perfectly." I laughed outright, and the girl blushed painfully. "It does describe him," she said petulantly. "You know it does. No one can gainsay that he is wonderfully, dangerously handsome. I believe the woman does not live who could refrain from feasting her eyes on his noble beauty. I wonder if I shall ever again--again." Tears were in her voice and almost in her eyes. "Dorothy! My God, Dorothy!" I exclaimed in terror. "Yes! yes! My God, Dorothy!" she responded, covering her face with her hands and sighing deeply, as she dropped her head and left me. Yes, yes, my God, Dorothy! The helpless iron and the terrible loadstone! The passive seed! The dissolving cloud and the falling rain!