effect of bringing Dorothy to her senses, but their plans completely
failed. The maiden began to sicken. The colour fled from her rosy
cheeks, and she began to grow rapidly worse. Lady Vernon ascribed it
to mere obstinacy, and grew impatient with her, and made her worse
than she would otherwise have been by finding fault with everything
she did; and by setting her long tasks of tenter-stitching to perform,
making her unhappy lot more miserable still. The only friend she had
to whom she could unbosom her secrets was her maid Lettice, and during
this time the hearts of the two girls were knitted closely together,
the one by a craving for sympathy, and the other drawn to love by the
dual bond of love and pity.

Many a night had these two wept together in the darkness and silence
of an unlighted room, and many a time had Dorothy laid her head upon
her tire-maid's knee and sobbed until with swollen eyes she had sobbed
herself to sleep; and many a night had Dorothy sat alone, forbidden to
leave the Hall, while her maid had gone out on a fruitless errand to
discover if her lover had yet come.

"Not yet?" she would ask, as the maid returned, and Lettice had echoed
"Not yet," in reply, until she hated the very sound of the words.

"O, Lettice, he has not forgotten me?" she would sob distractedly, as
she saw the disappointed face return.

"No, never, my lady. Something has happened, surely."

"It must be so," her mistress would reply, and then she would relapse
into silence.