As for myself, I say God bless Dorothy for lying. Perhaps I am in error. Perhaps I am not. I but tell you the story of Dorothy as it happened, and I am a poor hand at solving questions of right and wrong where a beautiful woman is concerned. To my thinking, she usually is in the right. In any case, she is sure to have the benefit of the doubt. When Sir George heard the woodman's story, he started hurriedly toward Bowling Green Gate. Now I shall tell you of Dorothy's adventures after I saw her cross the Wye. When she reached the gate, John was waiting for her. "Ah, Sir John, I am so glad you are here. That is, I am glad you are here before I arrived--good even," said the girl, confusedly. Her heart again was beating in a provoking manner, and her breath would not come with ease and regularity. The rapid progress of the malady with which she was afflicted or blessed was plainly discernible since the last meeting with my friend, Sir John. That is, it would have been plain to any one but John, whose ailment had taken a fatal turn and had progressed to the ante-mortem state of blindness. By the help of the stimulating hope and fear which Dorothy's letter had brought to him, he had planned an elaborate conversation, and had determined to speak decisive words. He hoped to receive from her the answer for which he longed; but his heart and breath seemed to have conspired with Dorothy to make intercommunication troublesome. "I received your gracious letter, Mistress Vernon, and I thank you. I was--I am--that is, my thanks are more than I--I can express." "So I see," said the girl, half amused at John's condition, although it was but little worse than her own. This universal malady, love, never takes its blind form in women. It opens their eyes. Under its influence they can see the truth through a millstone. The girl's heart jumped with joy when she saw John's truth-telling manner, and composure quickly came to her relief, though she still feigned confusion because she wished him to see the truth in her as she had seen it in him. She well knew of his blindness, and had almost begun to fear lest she would eventually be compelled to tell him in words that which she so ardently wished him to see for himself. She thought John was the blindest of his sex; but she was, to a certain extent, mistaken. John was blind, as you already know, but his reticence was not all due to a lack of sight. He at least had reached the condition of a well-developed hope. He hoped the girl cared for him. He would have fully believed it had it not been for the difficulty he found in convincing himself that a goddess like Dorothy could care for a man so unworthy as himself. Most modest persons are self-respecting. That was John's condition; he was not vain. "Jennie brought me your letter also," said the girl, laughing because she was happy, though her merriment somewhat disconcerted John.