She moved aside with a savage sound in her throat, and he threw the door wide open.

There sat Dorothy Fair before them at her dimity dressing-table, with all her slender body huddled forward and resting seemingly upon her two bare white arms, which encompassed her bowed head like sweet rings.

Not a glimpse of Dorothy's face could be seen under the wide flow of her fair curls, which parted only a little over the curve of one pink shoulder.

Dorothy wore her wedding-gown of embroidered India muslin; but her satin slippers were widely separated upon the floor, as if she had kicked them hither and thither; and on the bed, in a great, careless, fluffy heap, lay her wedding-veil, as if it had been tossed there.
Elvira Gordon, at a signal from Parson Fair, entered the room past the sullen negress, who rolled her eyes and muttered low, and went close to the girl at the dressing-table.
"Dorothy!" said Mrs.Gordon.
Dorothy made no sign that she heard.
"Dorothy, do you know it is an hour after the time set for your wedding ?" Dorothy was so still that instinctively Mrs.Gordon bent close over her and listened; but she heard quite plainly the soft pant of her breath, and knew she had not fainted.
Mrs.Gordon straightened herself and looked at her.

It was strange how that delicate, girlish form under the soft flow of fair locks and muslin draperies should express, in all its half-suggested curves, such utter obstinacy that it might have been the passive unresponsiveness of marble.