The girl caught his arm to detain him. "Say it now, John, say it now. I have dreamed of it by night and by day. You know all, and I know all, and I long to hear from your lips the words that will break down all barriers between us." She had been carried away by the mad onrush of her passion. She was the iron, the seed, the cloud, and the rain, and she spoke because she could not help it. "I will speak, Dorothy, God help me! God help me, I will speak!" said John, as he caught the girl to his breast in a fierce embrace. "I love you, I love you! God Himself only knows how deeply, how passionately! I do not know. I cannot fathom its depths. With all my heart and soul, with every drop of blood that pulses through my veins, I love you--I adore you. Give me your lips, my beauty, my Aphrodite, my queen!" "There--they--are, John,--there they are. They are--all yours--all yours--now! Oh, God! my blood is on fire." She buried her face on his breast for shame, that he might not see her burning eyes and her scarlet cheeks. Then after a time she cared not what he saw, and she lifted her lips to his, a voluntary offering. The supreme emotions of the moment drove all other consciousness from their souls. "Tell me, Dorothy, that you will be my wife. Tell me, tell me!" cried John. "I will, I will, oh, how gladly, how gladly!" "Tell me that no power on earth can force you to marry Lord Stanley. Tell me that you will marry no man but me; that you will wait--wait for me till--" "I will marry no man but you, John, no man but you," said the girl, whisperingly. Her head was thrown back from his breast that she might look into his eyes, and that he might see the truth in hers. "I am all yours. But oh, John, I cannot wait--I cannot! Do not ask me to wait. It would kill me. I wear the golden heart you gave me, John," she continued, as she nestled closer in his embrace. "I wear the golden heart always. It is never from me, even for one little moment. I bear it always upon my heart, John. Here it is." She drew from her breast the golden heart and kissed it. Then she pressed it to his lips, and said: "I kiss it twenty times in the day and in the night; ay, a hundred times. I do not know how often; but now I kiss your real heart, John," and she kissed his breast, and then stood tiptoe to lift her lips to his. There was no room left now in John's heart for doubt that Dorothy Vernon was his own forever and forever. She had convinced him beyond the reach of fear or doubt. John forgot the lockless gate. He forgot everything but Dorothy, and cruel time passed with a rapidity of which they were unconscious. They were, however, brought back to consciousness by hearing a long blast from the forester's bugle, and John immediately retreated through the gate.