The caressing touch thrilled the girl's being through every fiber.
"You ask why I am here!" she sobbed. "Let me tell you: I came here to die. Death would have come to me, I feel sure, if you had not crossed my path. I should have crept to the brink of the bank yonder, and thrown myself down into the river, and ended a life that is not worth the living."
"You must have seen a great deal of trouble to cause you to talk like that."
"I have seen more trouble than any other person on earth," retorted Dorothy, bitterly.
"Have you lost friends, or those nearer and dearer to you?" came the gentle question, and Dorothy did not hesitate, strangely enough, to answer it.
"I never had a relative that I can remember," she answered, with a little sob. "But I have lost my lover--my lover! He is to wed another, and that other a girl who was once my dearest friend."
"Your story is a sad one," replied the stranger, soothingly; "but it might have been worse--much worse. What if you had lost a husband whom you loved, or a little child whom you idolized? That would have been trouble before which such as you are grieving over now would have paled as the stars pale before a strong noon-day sun.
"I do not ask you your story, my poor girl, but listen, and I will tell you mine, and you can then judge how much mightier is my grief than yours."
"If you look through the trees yonder you will see a great stone mansion on the brow of the hill.
"It is my home. I live there with a dear young husband who adores me; my slightest wish is his law.
"I have liveried servants who anticipate and execute my slightest wish. I have all that wealth can buy and love can lavish upon me, but, God help me! I am the most unhappy creature that walks this flower-strewn earth.
"I have endured a sorrow so great that the wonder is it has not turned my brain. Some few months since I was happy in the love of a little child. Oh! I idolized my babe with a love that seemed greater than human affection. It was the loadstar of my life.
"'Take care! Beware!' cried one and all. 'Such idolatry is not wise; it displeases Heaven.'
"I laughed, and did not heed. One day we discharged a worthless servant and he cried out to my husband, as he turned away from the door: 'You shall repent this! I will yet wring the heart of you and yours to the very core; and in that moment, remember me!'