Forgive me for what I said, sweet cousin. My angry words sprang from my
love for you and my fear for your future."

No girl's heart was more tender to the influence of kindness than
Dorothy's. No heart was more obdurate to unkindness or peremptory command.

My words softened her at once, and she tried to smother the anger I had
aroused. But she did not entirely succeed, and a spark remained which in a
moment or two created a disastrous conflagration. You shall hear.

She walked by my side in silence for a little time, and then spoke in a
low, slightly sullen tone which told of her effort to smother her
resentment.

"I do trust you, Cousin Malcolm. What is it that you wish to ask of me?
Your request is granted before it is made."

"Do not be too sure of that, Dorothy," I replied. "It is a request your
father ardently desires me to make, and I do not know how to speak to you
concerning the subject in the way I wish."

I could not ask her to marry me, and tell her with the same breath that I
did not want her for my wife. I felt I must wait for a further opportunity
to say that I spoke only because her father had required me to do so, and
that circumstances forced me to put the burden of refusal upon her. I well
knew that she would refuse me, and then I intended to explain.

"Why, what is it all about?" asked the girl in surprise, suspecting, I
believe, what was to follow.