“Ay,” says I, “and I can well guess through whose intercession he did so, Dorothy, my dear. But tell me,” for a sudden thought was come to me, “what that signified which you writ to me in that letter telling me of my father’s death? You said that he bid me be worthy, and there stopped. Worthy of you, Doll, and of your faithful love--wan’t that what he would say?” “My dear Sir Harry said many kind things that I han’t set down,” says Dorothy, but I knew that I was right. “That you could love me still, after my evil usage of you, is more than I could have supposed,” I says to her. “I loved you, Ned,” says she, as though this were reason enough. “Not perhaps the Edward that my fancy portrayed, but still----” “Yes,” says I, “not the hero and the saint, but the poor sinner that was fallen into temptation. Little though he deserved it, yet he moved your pity, Doll, and so in some way your love.” “I might always pray for you,” she says slowly. “Though I strove at first to pluck this love from my heart, knowing that you should soon be the husband of another, yet my prayers have ever been yours, Ned.” “Tell me again, Doll,” I cried, remembering on a sudden that vision or apparition of her that I had beheld at St Thomas, and that had wrought so mightily with me, even withholding me from yielding to my lord marquis his will, “have you any particular recollection of a certain night” (naming the year and the day) “when you might have had intelligence of me in a dream?” “In a dream?” says she. “Why, Ned, I have often dreamt of you, so that would be no strange thing. But intelligence, do you say? I do indeed remember that one night, about the time whereof you speak, I had a very clear and distinct sight of you. I was about saying my prayers in my chamber, and it seemed afterwards as though I was fallen asleep as I knelt, for I had a vision of you, Ned, though I might not perceive plainly where you were, knowing only that I saw you, and that ’twas in my mind that you were threatened by great danger of dishonour. And so, looking upon you, I cried out to beg of you that you would resist the dishonour that was hanging over you, and then immediately awoke, and Mrs Skipwith, hearing me cry out, came into my chamber and chid me for sitting up too late a-reading romances.” And this seemed to me, though I can’t pretend to explain the matter, to be connected, without any possibility of doubt, with that vision of mine, and I wondered much, and do still, at the strange providence that did vouchsafe these visions to both of us at that very time when I stood in so great need of some such warning, showing me distinctly the very face and form of Dorothy, then far removed from me in England, and making me to hear her very words. And of this matter we spake much, admiring prodigiously the action of Providence therein, but arrived at no explication on’t more satisfactory to the scoffer than that ’twas a particular interposition of God in our favour.