She felt that the crowning moment of her life was at hand.

By the help of a subtle sense--familiar spirit to her love perhaps--she knew that John would ask her to go with him and to be his wife, despite all the Rutlands and Vernons dead, living, or to be born.

The thought of refusing him never entered her mind.

Queen Nature was on the throne in the fulness of power, and Dorothy, in perfect attune with her great sovereign, was fulfilling her destiny in accordance with the laws to which her drossless being was entirely amenable.
Many times had the fear come to her that Sir John Manners, who was heir to the great earldom of Rutland,--he who was so great, so good, and so beautiful,--might feel that his duty to his house past, present, and future, and the obligations of his position among the grand nobles of the realm, should deter him from a marriage against which so many good reasons could be urged.

But this evening her familiar spirit whispered to her that she need not fear, and her heart was filled with joy and certainty.