How the hours passed up to luncheon time Dorothy never afterward
realized, her foolish little heart was in such a flutter of excitement.
She knew she should meet Harry at the table, and oh! it would be so hard
to pretend before Doctor Bryan and the stern, keen-eyed old housekeeper
that they were strangers.
She had but two dresses as yet, which the housekeeper had provided her
with, and she tried on each of them in succession to see which looked
best on her.
Which should it be? The pale-blue merino or the rose-pink cashmere?
After much studying and slipping on and off, Dorothy decided upon
wearing the rose-pink.
She was scarcely dressed ere the luncheon bell rang.
Taking up her handkerchief, Dorothy flew down the stairway, pausing
before the doorway to catch her breath and to summon courage to enter.
But the longer she stood there the more difficult it seemed to get
courage enough to open the door and face the music. At length she heard
Doctor Bryan inquire surprisedly of Mrs. Kent:
"Where can Dorothy be, I wonder?"
And the next instant they heard a faint voice exclaim:
"Here I am, please."
And, turning to see from whence the sound proceeded, they all saw
distinctly that the door was open the space of an inch, and that a
human eye was applied to the crack, while four little fingers clutched
it frantically to keep it open.
"Come in, Dorothy," commanded Mr. Bryan, inwardly highly amused at the
girl's bashfulness in venturing in when she saw a stranger seated at the
board.
Dorothy opened the door, stumbled over the mat, and, with a face red as
a beet, walked awkwardly to the table and took her seat, which happened
to be directly opposite Harry's.
She did not dare for the life of her to look at him, for she knew that
his black eyes were bent upon her. She felt them scorching down into her
soul.
"Dorothy," said Mr. Bryan, pompously, "allow me to present to you my
young friend, Mr. Kendal."
"I am right glad to see him, sir," said Dorothy, faintly, without
raising her eyes.
Noticing her embarrassment, Doctor Bryan quickly turned the conversation
into another channel; but he soon observed that his young friend was
looking at the girl across the table, almost convulsed with laughter.
It took but one glance that way to see the cause.
In her great confusion Dorothy was making dire efforts to eat her soup
with a fork, catching occasionally a stray bean.
"Remove the soup plates!" roared the doctor to the servant who stood in
waiting, and who was also grinning at the girl's discomfiture.
It was the most confusing meal that Dorothy had ever sat down to.
And when she arose from the table she was far hungrier than when she sat
down.
She had scarcely eaten a good solid mouthful.
Oh, it was so hard to act out such a falsehood as handsome Harry had
prevailed upon her to do.
During the fortnight that followed, she became more used to the
situation, but it was no little wonder, both to the housekeeper and
Doctor Bryan, what excellent friends they were getting to be in so short
a time.
It could not be that they were falling in love with each other; and the
doctor looked rather serious at the last thought.
As for Dorothy, it was quite a clear case; she was deeply in love with
Harry Kendal. Like all girls, her day-dreams were rosy. It was so sweet
to wander with him through the grand grounds surrounding Gray Gables, or
sit in the sunshine in the clover meadow beyond, with the babbling brook
at their feet, and the great branches of the oak trees over their heads,
and listen to him while he read such sweet poems to her--poems of how
some lover loved a lassie, and how bright was their future.
But still there was a change in him; he wasn't just like he used to be
when she was only Dorothy Glenn, working for her living in the
book-bindery. And just to show him that she did not notice the change,
and did not care, she was so gay and hoidenish, so full of repartee and
laughter, that she saw him open his eyes in wonder more than once; and
Doctor Bryan gave her the _soubriquet_ of "Madcap Dorothy," which seemed
to suit her exactly.
There was no prank that could ever have entered a roguish girl's brain
which she did not play upon Kendal.
This phase of her character rather annoyed Kendal than pleased him; and
it seemed to him that she took a special delight in teasing him. She hid
his slippers, slipped briars into his couch, turned tack-points upward
in his lounging chairs, and substituted periodicals a month old for his
morning journals and magazines, until he almost grew to detest her for
becoming the torment of his life. Shrewd as he was in the ways of young
girls, he did not know that this is the course which many a young girl
pursues toward a young man with whom she has fallen in love, and would
not have him know it for the whole world.
If there was anything which Kendal detested, it was a girl who was
always on the lookout to turn every word and action into a joke. He
preferred them modest and flower-like; still, he was in duty bound to
treat her as well as he could because she was under that roof.
And there was another reason why he began to abhor Dorothy. Before her
appearance on the scene, there had been a wild hope in his heart that
some day he might possibly inherit a good portion of Doctor Bryan's
money. For two years or more he had left no stone unturned to get into
the old gentleman's good graces.
True, Dorothy was as much of a stranger to Doctor Bryan as he himself
was, but who knew but that, by some freak of unlucky fate, he might take
a notion to leave the girl all of his fortune? He wished to Heaven she
had never crossed the threshold of Gray Gables.
At this turn of affairs it occurred to him that it would not be a bad
idea to test the old gentleman's friendship for himself; and the
greatest of all tests, he believed, was to borrow money from him. If
Doctor Bryan refused this little favor, he reasoned to himself, all his
hopes in regard to inheriting the old gentleman's money, in time to
come, would be dashed. He would ask him for a small loan; and on the
very day this occurred to him he proceeded to put it into execution,
saying to himself:
"'He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who fears to put it to, the touch
To win or lose it all.'"
He knew that he should find the doctor in his study directly after
luncheon, and here he presented himself with some trepidation.
"Come in," called the doctor, in answer to his knock.
"Oh, it's _you_, is it, Harry?" he exclaimed, placing a chair for him,
which the young man took rather awkwardly.
"It is not often I trouble you in your study, sir," began Harry, "but I
have something of importance to say to you, and I beg that you will
pardon the intrusion. I chose a time when we will be least apt to be
interrupted."
"I wouldn't advise you to begin it if it will take long to tell," said
Mr. Bryan, "for we might be interrupted at any moment. I am expecting an
old friend, who is to accompany me on a horse-back ride. He ought to
have been here by this time."
Harry fidgeted nervously about in his chair. It required something of
an effort to make his request carelessly.
"You are the only one," he began, a little disconcertedly, "I feel sure,
who can help me in my present dilemma."
The old doctor wheeled suddenly around in his chair, and all in an
instant the object of the young man's visit flashed over his mind.
"To my mind he is come to tell me that he has fallen head over heels in
love with little Dorothy, and wants to marry her;" and with the thought
a broad smile crept up to the lips the white beard covered.
He had never been in love himself--but, for all that, he always
sympathized with young folks in their tender affairs of the heart, and
many a secret sigh escaped his lips for the lost opportunities of the
past.
"Well," he began, brusquely, "why don't you proceed, my boy?"
"It is such a delicate matter," began Kendal, "that I scarcely know how
to frame the words. You have always been so kind to me in the past, that
the remembrance of it has led me to dare hope that your goodness will
not desert me in the present emergency."
"Well," said the old gentleman, rather enjoying the young man's evident
discomfiture, "pray go on."
"The boon I have to ask," began Kendal, "will either make or mar my
future."
"Is it so bad as that?" returned the old gentleman with assumed
innocence.
"You could never imagine what it is that I wish to ask," continued the
young man.
"I might guess, perhaps," laughed the doctor, with a roguish twinkle in
his eye.
"Surely you--you couldn't have noticed the one great wish of my heart,"
gasped Kendal. "I--"
At that moment the expected visitor was announced.
"Come and see me in my library this evening," said Doctor Bryan,
grasping the young man's hand, "and we will talk over the matter you
have so much at heart, and I will give you my answer in regard to it."
"You are too good, sir," cried Kendal, in bewilderment.
At that moment the entrance of the visitor put a stop to all further
conversation, and Kendal arose and took his leave after an exchange of
greetings.
"How could he possibly have divined that I was thinking of asking him
for money?" he pondered.
He heard Dorothy singing at the top of her voice in the drawing-room,
and he turned on his heel in the hallway, and walked in an opposite
direction with a frown of impatience on his face.
Dorothy saw him pass the door, and she bit her lip with vexation.
"Of course he heard me playing on the piano, for I thumped as loud as
ever I could; but he did not come in. It seems to me he is trying 'to
cool off,' as we girls in the bindery used to say."
Dorothy tiptoed over to the window as she heard the front door slam
after him, and if he had looked back he would have seen a very defiant
though tear-stained face peering earnestly after him from behind the
lace curtains.
Kendal walked disconsolately enough through the spacious grounds and out
into the main road, little dreaming that a strange fate was drawing him
onward with each step he took.
He had traveled a mile or more over the country road, when suddenly he
was startled by the sound of horses' hoofs.
The next instant, from around the bend in the road, a horse dashed
riderless, covered with foam, and so near him that he had to spring
aside or its hoofs would have been buried in his brain. One glance, and
a cry of horror broke from his lips. It was Doctor Bryan's horse.
Great God! where was he? Kendal realized that there had been a terrible
accident, and that at that moment the doctor lay dying--perhaps dead--by
the road-side.
In all haste he rushed down the road in the direction whence the horse
had come, and around the first bend he beheld the prostrate figure of
Doctor Bryan lying covered with dust, his friend bending over him.
In an instant he was by his side. One glance, and his worst fears were
realized--the old gentleman had been mortally injured--he was dying. He
held out his hand when he saw Kendal bending over him, and nodded assent
as his companion briefly and hurriedly related how the terrible accident
had come about.
"I was just about to go for you," said the friend. "The doctor has
something to say to you. Surely it was the work of Providence that you
happened along just now."
Kendal bent over the prostrate form.
"I--I am dying, Harry!" gasped the doctor; "but that--of which we
were--talking--this--afternoon--is--uppermost--in--my--mind.
You--you--wished--me--to--give my--consent--to--to--your--wooing--and
wedding little--Dorothy. I--give--it--to
you--here--and--now--with--my--blessing--for--I--know--she--cares--for
you. Six months--from--to-day--at--noon--my--will--must be read; and on
that day you--must marry her--if ever--aye--you must--be wedded--ere
that noon-hour--shall have waned. Then--then--within that hour--you
shall know--the contents of--my will; and--remember, too,
that--it--is--irrevocable!"
Harry Kendal reeled back, like one dazed by an awful blow.
The suddenness of this affair had taken his breath away. But before he
could raise his voice in protest, or utter one word of the terrible
mistake which the old gentleman was laboring under, Doctor Bryan
breathed his last, and he found himself betrothed, as it were, to
Dorothy, and by the most terrible mistake that ever a man labored under.