Katy, the maid, had nothing to say. Much to Dorothy's surprise, they did not come to the room in which she was awaiting them, and she heard them go on to the drawing-room, and the door close behind them.

Ten, twenty minutes, half an hour passed, still they did not come to her, though the sound of their merry laughter fell upon her ears from time to time. Katy tried to arouse her mistress' interest, but it was useless – the girl never moved from her position, sitting pale and white in the great arm-chair, with her sightless eyes turned toward the door.

Suddenly she turned to Katy with a great sob.

"They have forgotten me," she said.

Katy had come to this conclusion long before.

"I will tell them you are waiting," she replied, and as she spoke she hurried from the room to the drawing-room. On the threshold she came face to face with Mr. Kendal, and at a glance she could not help but notice the happy, flushed look on his face.

"Miss Dorothy sent me in search of you, sir," she said, with a low courtesy. The smile on his lips died away in an instant, giving place to a dark frown of impatience.

"What does she want?" he asked, sharply.

"She says she is so lonesome, sir, and sent me to tell you so."

"Is there a minute of my life that she is not sending for me – expecting me to be at her beck and call?" he said. "I am going out into the conservatory to get some flowers for Miss Vincent. I guess it won't hurt Dorothy to wait a little while, will it?"

"Is that what I shall tell her?" asked the girl, quietly.

"Tell her whatever you like," he said to the girl, hurrying on and leaving her standing there with a very white, sorrowful face.

Slowly she walked back to the breakfast-room, her heart burning with indignation. Dorothy met her eagerly.

"Are they coming?" she asked.

"Very soon now, miss," replied Katy.

"What delayed them?"

"I – I think they were getting a cup of tea for the strange young lady, miss. You know she came quite a long way, and she must be very tired."

"Why, that is very true," said Dorothy. "I wonder that I never thought of that before. It seemed as though I was not missed," and a sigh trembled over the girl's pale lips as she spoke.

A few moments later Kendal's step was heard in the corridor.

Dorothy sprang eagerly to meet him, and threw her arms impulsively around his neck.

Was it only her fancy, or did he draw back from the usual caress as though he did not care to receive it?

Oh! surely not. Since this horrible blindness had come upon her, her imagination was running riot against her judgment. The one great fear of her life was that he might cease to love her, now that this great affliction had come upon her, and she noted every word, every action, and every touch of his dear hand, and weighed it over in her mind, for hours at a time, when she found herself alone.

God pity her if that love should ever fail her!

"Shall Miss Vincent see me soon, Harry?" she asked, nestling her head against his shoulder, her little hands seeking his.

"Very soon now," he responded. Was it her fancy, or did even his voice seem changed?

"Do you like her?" asked Dorothy, wistfully.

"Like her?" he cried. "Why, she is charming!"

"Is she fair of face?" asked Dorothy, slowly.

"The most beautiful girl I have ever seen!" he cried, enthusiastically, all forgetful of the girl by his side, to whom his troth was plighted.

The words struck Dorothy's heart with a cold chill, as a blast of icy winter wind strikes death to the heart of a tender hot-house flower when its chill breath sweeps across it.

"They say you went down to the train to meet her," said Dorothy.

"Yes; Mrs. Kemp wanted me to," he responded; "and I shall never forget that meeting with her niece while life lasts, it was so ludicrous. I arrived at the depot just as the train had stopped, and the passengers were already pouring from the car. In my haste to reach the throng I slipped upon a banana peel, and the next instant I was plunging headlong forward, bumping straight into an old lady carrying numerous bundles and boxes, who had just alighted from the train.

"There was a crash and a yell, and a roar of laughter from the by-standers; and no wonder, for I had crashed directly into a huge jar of jam which she held in her hand, and in less time than it takes to tell it I was completely besmeared with it from head to foot. For once in my life I got enough jam in my mouth, and as I scrambled to my feet I beheld a young lady standing before me screaming with laughter.

"At a glance I knew it could be none other than Miss Vincent. What I said as I hastily stepped up to her is but a confused memory to me. I managed to articulate that I had been sent from Gray Gables with a carriage for her. The more I said the more she screamed with laughter, in which I could not help joining to have saved my life.

"'What! ride through the town with a jammed-up man like that!' she ejaculated. 'Why, that would be too sweet for anything – so sweet that all the bees in the clover fields we passed would come flying after us to enjoy the sport.'

"The laugh that followed fairly made the rafters of the old depot ring; and at this juncture a friend in need came to my assistance – one of my old chums – and in a trice had stripped off my coat and hat, and replaced them by a new overcoat and Derby hat which he had just purchased. And when the luckless jam was washed from my face 'Richard was himself again.'

"'Now you look something like a respectable human being,' she declared, as I helped her into the carriage.

"And all during the drive home we had the greatest kind of a laugh over my ludicrous mishap. It was forming each other's acquaintance under difficulties, as she phrased it. I can truthfully say that I never was so much embarrassed before a young girl in all my life. But do you know, Dorothy," he went on, "that that laughable incident which happened made us better acquainted with each other during that half hour's ride home than if we had met under ordinary circumstances and known each other for long months?"

Dorothy laughed heartily at the highly amusing scene which he pictured so graphically, and said to herself that now she could understand why Harry and this strange young girl were laughing so gayly together as they came up the graveled walk.

"You will be sure to like her," cried Harry, enthusiastically. "I will go and fetch her to you now."

But just as he was about to put his intention into execution, they heard the voice of Mrs. Kemp and her niece outside, and they entered an instant later.

"Dorothy," said Mrs. Kemp, "my niece, Iris, is here. Iris, this is Dorothy. I am sure you two girls will love each other dearly."

Dorothy, turned hastily toward the direction from whence the sound proceeded, holding out her little white hands nervously, a great hectic flush stealing up into her pale face.

"Welcome to Gray Gables, Miss Vincent – Iris," she said in her sweet, tremulous, girlish voice. "I – I would cross the room to where you are standing, if I could, but I can not. I can not look upon your face to welcome you, for – I am – blind!"

There was a frou-frou of skirts upon the velvet carpet, and the next moment Iris Vincent's arms were about her.

"There could not be a sweeter welcome, Dorothy – if I may call you so – and I am sure we shall get on famously together," murmured Miss Vincent, and a pair of ripe red lips met Dorothy's; but the kiss was as light as the brush of a butterfly's wings against the petals of a rose, and there was no warmth in the clasp of the soft, ringed fingers.

Somehow, although the stranger's voice was sweet as the sound of a silver lute, and her manner caressing, Dorothy did not feel quite at home with her.

"If I should judge by the tone of her voice and the words she utters, my fancy would lead me to believe that she was very beautiful," thought Dorothy. "But then Katy said that she was plain, very plain of face, although Harry has said that she was beautiful. No doubt he wanted to leave a good impression on my mind regarding her."

The evening that followed was a happy one for Dorothy, because, even without being coaxed, Harry signified his intention of remaining in the house, instead of going out to the club, as was his custom.

It had always been a deep grievance of Dorothy's that her musical accomplishments were so meager.

She only knew a few accompaniments that she had picked up, while Miss Vincent played divinely.

And her voice – ah! it sounded like the chiming of silver bells. And then, too, she knew so many beautiful songs, and they were all such tender love songs.

She was so glad that Harry liked them, too, and her poor face would flush scarlet, and her white lids droop over her sightless eyes, as the sweet singer's voice rose and thrilled over some tender love words; for she felt sure that her Harry was looking at her with all love's tender passion in his glorious dark eyes.

Chapter XI

It was quite late when the group that was gathered in the drawing-room dispersed that evening; but when the girls found themselves alone in their own room, which they were to share together, they sat down for a comfortable chat ere they retired.

"Do you think you will like Gray Gables?" asked Dorothy.

"It seems pleasant enough," returned Iris, with a yawn; "but it's not the house so much, it's the people in the neighborhood. Are there many young folks hereabouts?"

"Quite a number."

"Are they very jolly, or are they terribly dull?"

"Well, about as jolly as Mr. Kendal," laughed Dorothy. "He's not so very jolly, and yet he is wonderfully good company."

"Yes, he is indeed," assented Miss Vincent. "Is he rich?" she asked, point-blank, in the very next breath.

"No," returned Dorothy; "but he may be well off some day, I hope."

"Handsome and poor! That's too bad – that's a poor combination!" sighed Miss Vincent, her countenance falling. "But tell me about him, Dorothy, and – and how he ever happened to take a fancy to a quiet little mouse like yourself. I have heard that it was your guardian's wish, as he was dying, and that the idea was quite a surprise to him – to Mr. Kendal, I mean. Is that true?"

"Yes," assented Dorothy, thoughtlessly enough.

She would not have answered the question in that way could she have seen the eager anxiety on the face of the girl who asked it.

"Does he make love to you very much?" whispered Iris, laying her soft cheek close against the blind girl's. "Forgive the question, but, do you know, I have always had a longing to know just what engaged people said to each other and how they acted – whether they grew more affectionate, or, after the grand climax of an engagement had been entered into, if – if somehow they did not act a little constrained toward each other."

Dorothy laughed long and merrily at the quaint ideas of her new friend. But, then, no doubt all girls wished to know that. She had done so herself once.

"You do not answer me," murmured Miss Vincent. "Now, please don't be unkind, Dorothy, when I'm just dying to know."

"Well," said Dorothy, waxing very confidential, after the fashion of girls, "I'll tell you my experience; but mind, I don't say that it is like every other girl's. Harry has been just a trifle bashful ever since the afternoon that he asked me to – to be his wife, and just a little constrained; but I always account for it in this way: that he does not want me to think him silly and spoony. He has grown, oh! ever so dignified. Why, he hardly ever says anything more about love – he thinks he has said all there is to say. And his caresses are the same way – just a little bit constrained, you know."

Iris Vincent had learned all she cared to know.

"Thank you, dear, ever so much, for gratifying my curiosity," she said aloud; but in her own heart she said:

"I knew it – I knew it! Handsome Harry Kendal does not love this girl with whom they have forced him into a betrothal. No wonder he looks sad and melancholy, with a prospect before him of marrying a blind wife! Ah, me! it is too dreadful a fate to even contemplate."

She looked complacently in the mirror at her own face. Well might Harry Kendal have remarked that it was as beautiful as a poet's dream.

Nothing could have been more exquisitely lovely than the deep, velvety, violet eyes, almost purple in their glorious depths, and the bronze-gold hair, such as Titian loved to paint, that fell in heavy curls to her slender waist.

One would scarcely meet in a life-time a girl of such wondrous loveliness. Iris was only twenty, but already she had broken hearts by the score.

She had only to smile at a man with those ripe, red, perfect lips, and give him one glance from those mesmeric eyes, and he was straightway her slave. And she gloried in her power.

Thrice she had broken up betrothals, and three young girls were heart-broken in consequence, and had lifted up their anguished voices and cursed her for her fatal beauty. But Iris only laughed her mellow, wicked little laugh when she heard of it, and said:

"Poor little simpletons! Before they engage themselves they ought to have been sure that they held their lovers' hearts completely. It were better for them to realize before than after marriage that the men they meant to stake their all upon could prove fickle at the first opportunity when a pretty girl crossed their paths."

And who could say that there was not some little truth in this?

The two girls whose paths were to cross so bitterly slept peacefully side by side that night; but long after Iris' eyes had closed in slumber, Dorothy lay awake with oh! such a heavy load on her heart.

She wished she was gay and bright, like Iris, and oh! what would she not have given only to see – only to see once again! And she turned her face to where she knew the moonlight lay in great yellow bars on the floor, and sobbed as she had never sobbed since she had become blind, and fell asleep with the tear-drops staining her pale face, a long, deep sigh trembling over her lips.

Both girls awoke early the next morning.

"When do you have breakfast?" asked Iris, with a yawn.

"At eight o'clock," said Dorothy; "so we need not be in a hurry about getting up. It can not be more than six now."

"Oh, dear! then I shall have to get up at once," cried Iris; "for it takes me fully that long to dress."

"Two hours!" cried Dorothy, amazed, adding: "Why, just put on a wrapper. Nobody here ever thinks of making a toilet to appear at the breakfast-table. There is no one but Mrs. Kemp, Harry, you and I."

She could not catch Iris' unintelligible reply, but she noticed that the girl was not to be persuaded.

She commenced dressing at once.

Soon Dorothy detected a strange odor of burning paper in the room.

"What is that?" she cried, in alarm. "Oh, Miss Vincent, the house must be on fire!"

Iris laughed long and loud.

"You delightful, innocent little goose!" she cried. "I am only curling my bangs with an iron heated over the gas, and I'm trying the tongs on paper to see that they are not too hot. I put my curls up in paper last night, but the horrid old things wouldn't curl because of the damp atmosphere, and – " She did not finish the sentence for Dorothy supplied it in her own mind – "her new friend was desirous of looking her best."

Harry was pacing impatiently up and down the breakfast-room when they entered.

"Good-morning, Miss Vincent; good-morning, Dorothy!" he exclaimed, eagerly; and Dorothy's heart gave a quick start, noting that he called her name last.

And another thing struck Dorothy quite forcibly. To her great surprise, she noticed that Iris spoke in quite a different tone from what she did when they were alone together in their own room.

There her accents were drawling, but now they were so wonderfully sweet and musical that Dorothy was struck with wonder. She never knew that a person could speak in two different tones of voice like this.

At the breakfast-table the conversation was bright and merry, though outside the rain had commenced to patter against the window-pane.

Dorothy felt strangely diffident, for only a small portion of the conversation was directed now and then to her, and Harry and Miss Vincent kept up such a lively chatter that there was scarcely an opportunity to get in a word edgewise.

The conversation turned upon horseback riding, and it brought a strange pang to Dorothy's heart, for that had been the most pleasurable accomplishment she had learned during the first few weeks she had been at Gray Gables, and she loved it passionately.

In the very hour when they told her that she would for evermore be blind – stone-blind – the cry that had sprung to her lips was, "And can I never again ride Black Beauty?" and she bowed her head in a storm of wild and tempestuous grief.

For many a day after Harry would not even have the name of Black Beauty mentioned in her hearing. And now how strange that he should bring up the subject in her presence!

"I am sorry it is raining, Miss Vincent," he said, "for I had promised myself such a pleasure for this morning. I had intended asking you to join me in a canter over the country. This is just the season of the year to enjoy the bracing air. We have a little horse in the stable that would delight you, if you are a judge of equine flesh. Its very name indicates what it is – Black Beauty. You ride, of course?" – this interrogatively.

"Oh, yes!" declared Iris; "and I always thought it would be the height of my ambition if I could own a horse."

"That would be a very slight ambition to gratify," returned Harry Kendal. "You may have – "

He was about to add, "Black Beauty," but at that instant his eyes fell upon Dorothy. She was leaning forward, her sightless eyes turned in his direction, with a world of anguish in them that would have melted a heart of stone.

Mrs. Kemp saw the storm approaching, and said, hastily:

"I have always been thinking of buying a pony for my niece, and if she is a very good girl, she may get one for Christmas."

Harry looked his thanks to Mrs. Kemp for coming to his rescue so timely.

Dorothy lingered after the others had left the breakfast-room, and called to Harry to wait a minute, as she wished to speak with him.

He had a guilty conscience; he knew what was coming. She meant to ask him if he intended offering Black Beauty to Miss Vincent, and, of course, he made up his mind to deny it.

Chapter XII

The long weeks that had passed since the never-to-be-forgotten steamboat incident on Labor Day passed like a nightmare to poor Jack Garner.

Slowly but surely the knowledge had come to him that Dorothy, his little sweetheart, had faded like a dream from his life; and as this became a settled fact in his mind, his whole nature seemed to change.

He grew reckless, morbid, and gay by turns, until his old mother grew terrified, fearing for his reason. His whole heart had been in his work before and his one aim in life had been to make money.

He had saved quite a snug little sum, which he very prudently placed in the bank.

Now, to his mother's horror, his recklessness lost him his position, and he did not have enough ambition to try and secure another place, but commenced to draw his little hoard from the bank, and his money was disappearing like snow before a summer's sun.

He began coming in late at nights, as well, and the widow, who listened for his footsteps, cried out in anguish: "Would to God that I had died ere I had lived to see this horrible change take place in my idolized son!"

His cousin Barbara keenly felt the change in him. It was she who comforted the poor old mother, and who pleaded with Jack to try and take up the duties of life again, and to forget faithless Dorothy.

But he would only shake his head, and answer that he would never cease to love Dorothy and search for her while life lasted. But troubles never seem to come singly. One day, as Jack was pacing restlessly up and down Broadway – the vantage-ground which he always sought at six o'clock each evening, to scan the faces of the working-girls as they passed, with the lingering hope in his heart that some day, sooner or later, his vigilance would be rewarded by seeing Dorothy – a terrible accident happened which almost cost him his life.

An old sign on one of the corner buildings, which had done service many a year, suddenly fell, and Jack – poor Jack, was knocked senseless to the pavement.

Surely it was the workings of Providence that Jessie Staples happened along just at that critical moment.

With a wild, bitter cry she sprang forward, flinging herself upon the prostrate body, shrieking out as she saw his handsome, white face with the stains of blood upon it:

"Oh, Heaven have mercy! It is Jack – Jack Garner!"

Kindly hands raised him. No, he was not dead – only stunned, and terribly bruised.

A cab was hastily summoned, and, accompanied by Jessie, he was taken home.

The girl broke the sad news gently to Jack's mother and to Barbara. It was many and many a day before Jack left his couch; the accident had proved more dangerous than had been at first anticipated, for brain fever had set in.

Every day on her way home from the book-bindery Jessie would go several blocks out of her way to see how Jack was getting along, and Barbara and his mother soon discovered that it was something more than mere friendship that actuated the girl's visits. Although against their expostulations, every cent that she could scrape together, over and above the cost of the bare necessities of her living, she would expend for fruit to bring to Jack.

"I feel such a great pity for him," she would say; "for he has never, never been the same since Dorothy disappeared so suddenly." And they would look at the girl with wistful eyes, realizing that in her case, surely, pity was akin to love.

They guessed Jessie's secret long before she knew it herself, and they felt sorry for her; for they knew her hopes were useless – that Jack could never return the girl's love.

Jack's mother and Barbara talked the matter over carefully, and concluded that it was best for the girl's peace of mind to break up this infatuation, if they could, at once.

At this epoch an event happened which turned the tide of affairs into a strange channel.

By the death of a relative Jack suddenly found himself possessed of a fortune.

He heard the startling news with a white, calm, unmoved face, while his mother and Barbara almost went wild with joy over it.

"It matters little to me now," he said. "Wealth has no charms for me." And they well knew why.

The intelligence came like a thunderbolt to Jessie Staples.

It was Mrs. Garner who told about it while the family were gathered about the tea-table.

The girl's face grew white as death, and she looked over at Jack with startled eyes.

Before she could ask the question that sprang to her lips, Mrs. Garner added:

"Of course this will make a great change in Jack's prospects. He says that we shall soon leave the little cottage and go out West somewhere – Barbara and I and himself – and that we will leave New York City far behind us, as there is no tie that binds him here now."

Jessie tried to speak, but the words refused to come to her icy lips. She made an effort to raise her eyes to Jack's face, with a careless smile; but it was a failure – a dire failure.

The table seemed to suddenly rise and dance before her.

She rose hastily, with a wild prayer that she might get quickly out of the room, for she felt her throat choking up with great sobs, and realized that in an instant more she would have burst into tears.

Poor Jessie Staples took one step forward, then fell unconscious at Jack's feet.

"Why, what in the world can be the matter with Jessie?" he cried, raising her in his strong arms. "Is she ill? Let us send for a physician – quick!"

"Stay!" said his mother, as he deposited Jessie on the sofa and turned quickly to put this last thought into execution. "Jessie's trouble is one which no physician can alleviate. It is an affair of the heart."

Jack looked at his mother in amazement.

"An affair of the heart?" he repeated. "Surely not, mother. Why, I have known Jessie ever since I can remember, and I never knew her to have a beau."

"Perhaps she has given her heart to some one who does not return her love – who may not even know of it," suggested Mrs. Garner, quietly.

"Impossible," declared Jack. "I have known her for years, I say, and if there was an affair of the heart between Jessie and any of the young men at the bindery, I should have known something of it."

Mrs. Garner came nearer and laid her hand on her son's arm.

"Are you sure, Jack?" she asked, in a low voice.

He gave a great start.

"I know of one whom she loves, and who, she knows, never thinks of her. When his life hung in jeopardy her secret was revealed to me."

"Surely you do not– you can not mean, mother – that she – that I – "

"Yes, that is what I mean," returned Mrs. Garner, quietly. "Jessie Staples loves you, my boy; but do not be hard on the poor girl. Remember, love goes where it is sent. She never intended that you should know it. She did not breathe a word about it to any one. It was by the merest chance that we made the discovery, and she does not dream that we know it."

Jack sank down in the nearest chair, quite overcome with dismay.

His mother came and bent over him, smoothing the fair hair back from his damp brow with a trembling hand, but uttering no word.

At last he broke the deep silence:

"What am I to say – what am I to do, mother, if – if – your surmises be actually true?"

"They are not surmises, my boy," returned his mother; "they are truths."

"You know that I like Jessie," he went on, huskily; "but as for any other sentiment – why, it would be impossible. My life will always be tinged with the bitter sorrow of that other love-dream which was so cruelly shattered. I – I wish to Heaven you had not told me your suspicions about Jessie, mother."

"Her secret fell from my lips in an unguarded moment," she answered, slowly, "and I am sorry you know all. Yet it must be a source of comfort to you to know that although Dorothy Glenn was false to you, there is one heart which beats only for you."

Jack started to his feet, a dull pallor creeping into his face as he drew back from his mother's touch.

"Dorothy is not false to me!" he cried. "If an angel from heaven should tell me so I would not believe it. She is my betrothed bride. She wears my betrothal-ring upon her little hand. No matter where she is, she is true to me – true as God's promise. Shame has caused her to hide herself from me, because she was so foolish as to go with another on an excursion on Labor Day. But I have forgiven all that long ago. Oh, Heaven! if I could but let her know it!"

Mrs. Garner shook her head.

"A young girl who can leave you for months without a word does not care for you, my boy," she answered, sadly. "Surely there is great truth in the words that 'Love is blind,' if you can not be made to see this."

Still the noble lover shook his head. There was no power on earth strong enough to shake his faith in Dorothy's love.

Mrs. Garner had said all that she could say for Jessie, and she bowed her head, and great tears rolled down her cheeks. She felt great pity for Jessie. Why could not her son love her? She had heard the story of jilted lovers turning to some sympathizing heart for solace, and in time learning to love their consoler, and she wondered if this might not mercifully happen to her darling, idolized boy.

She watched him as he paced excitedly up and down the room. Suddenly he turned to her, and during all the long after years of sorrow and pain she never forgot the expression of his face.

"Mother!" he cried, hoarsely, "if my Dorothy ever proved false to me, I should be tempted to – to – kill her – and – then – kill – myself!"