On the morning of the fourth day, Dorothy came out of her mother's room with a tray of empty dishes in her hands. She saw Evesham at the stair-head and hovered about in the shadowy part of the hall till he should go down.
"Dorothy," he said, "I'm waiting for you." He took the tray from her and rested it on the banisters. "Your father and I have talked over all the business. He's got the impression that I'm one of the most generous fellows in the world. I intend to leave him in that delusion for the present. Now may I speak to him about something else, Dorothy? Have I not waited long enough for my heart's desire?"
"Take care," said Dorothy softly,--"thee'll upset the tea-cups."
"Confound the tea-cups!" He stooped to place the irrelevant tray on the floor, but now Dorothy was halfway down the staircase. He caught her on the landing, and taking both her hands drew her down on the step beside him.
"Dorothy, this is the second time you've taken advantage of my trusting nature. This time you shall be punished. You needn't try to hide your face, you little traitor. There's no repentance in you!"
"If I'm to be punished there's no need of repentance."
"Oh, is that your Quaker doctrine? Dorothy, do you know, I've never heard you speak my name, except once, and then you were angry with me."
"The night I caught you at the gate. You said, 'I had rather have one of those dumb brutes for company than thee, Walter Evesham.' You said it in the fiercest little voice. Even the 'thee' sounded as if you hated me."
"I did," said Dorothy promptly. "I had reason to."
"What an implacable little Quaker you are."
"A tyrant is always hated," said Dorothy, trying to release her hands.
"If you will look in my eyes, Dorothy, and call me by my name, just once, I'll let 'thee' go."
"Walter Evesham," said Dorothy, with great firmness and decision.
"No, that won't do! You must look at me, and say it softly, in a little sentence, Dorothy."
Walter Evesham was a man of his word, but as Dorothy sped away, he looked as if he wished that he was not.
The next evening Friend Barton sat by his wife's easy-chair drawn into the circle of firelight, with his elbows on his knees and his head between his hands.
The worn spot on the top of his head had widened considerably during the summer, but Rachel looked stronger and brighter than she had done for many a day. There was even a little flush on her cheek, but this might have come from the excitement of a long talk with her husband.