The Shadow of a Crime Part 35

Yes, the sunshine had been over her when he looked at her before, and it had bathed her in a beauty that was not her own. That had not been her fault, poor girl. He had been too hard on her. He would go and make amends.

As w.i.l.l.y entered the house, Sim was coming out of it. They pa.s.sed without a word.

"Forgive me, Rotha," said w.i.l.l.y, walking up to her and taking her hand. "I spoke in haste and too harshly."

Rotha let her hand lie in his, but made no reply. After his apology, w.i.l.l.y would have extenuated his fault.

"You see, Rotha, you don't know my brother as well as I do, and hence you could not foresee what would have happened if we had done what you proposed."

Still there was no response. w.i.l.l.y's words came more slowly as he continued: "And it was wrong to suppose that whether Ralph were given up or not they would leave us in this place, but it was natural that you should think it a good thing to save this shelter."

"I was thinking of your mother, w.i.l.l.y," said Rotha, with her eyes on the ground.

"My mother--true." w.i.l.l.y had not thought of this before; that Rotha's mind had been running on the possible dangers to his mother of the threatened eviction had never occurred to him until now. He had been wrong--entirely so. His impulse was to take the girl in his arms and confess the injustice of his reflections; but he shrank from this at the instant, and then his mind wriggled with apologies for his error.

"To spare mother the peril of being turned into the roads--that would have been something; yes, much. Ralph himself must have chosen to do that. But once in the clutches of those bloodhounds, and it might have meant banishment for years, for life perhaps--aye, perhaps even death itself."

"And even so," said Rotha, stepping back a pace and throwing up her head, while her hands were clinched convulsively,--"and even so," she repeated. "Death comes to all; it will come to him among the rest, and how could he die better? If he were a thousand times my brother, I could give him up to such a death."

"Rotha, my darling," cried w.i.l.l.y, throwing his arms about her, "I am ashamed. Forgive me if I said you were thinking of yourself. Look up, my darling; give me but one look, and say you have pardoned me."

Rotha had dropped her eyes, and the tears were now blinding them.

"I was a monster to think of it, Rotha; look in my face, my girl, and say you forgive me."

"I could have followed you over the world, w.i.l.l.y, and looked for no better fortune. I could have trusted to you, and loved you, though we had no covering but the skies above us."

"Don't kill me with remorse, Rotha; don't heap coals of fire on my head. Look up and smile but once, my darling."

Rotha lifted her tear-dimmed eyes to the eyes of her lover, and w.i.l.l.y stooped to kiss her trembling lips. At that instant an impulse took hold of him which he was unable to resist, and words that he struggled to suppress forced their own utterance.

"Great G.o.d!" he cried, and drew back his head with a quick recoil, "how like your father you are!"

CHAPTER XXIV. TREASON OR MURDER.

The night was dark that followed. It had been a true c.u.mbrian day in winter. The leaden sky that hung low and dense had been relieved only by the white rolling mists that capped the fells and swept at intervals down their brant and rugged sides. The air had not cleared as the darkness came on. There was no moon. The stars could not struggle through the vapor that lay beneath them. There was no wind.

It was a cold and silent night.

Rotha stood at the end of the lonnin, where the lane to Shoulthwaite joined the pack-horse road. She was wrapped in a long woollen cloak having a hood that fell deep over her face. Her father had parted from her half an hour ago, and though the darkness had in a moment hidden him from her sight, she had continued to stand on the spot at which he had left her.

She was slight of figure and stronger of will than physique, but she did not feel the cold. She was revolving the step she had taken, and thinking how great an issue hung on the event. Sometimes she mistrusted her judgment, and felt an impulse to run after her father and bring him back. Then a more potent influence would prompt her to start away and overtake him, yet only in order to bear his message the quicker for her fleeter footsteps.

But no; Fate was in it: a power above herself seemed to dominate her will. She must yield and obey. The thing was done.

The girl was turning about towards the house, when she heard footsteps approaching her from the direction which her father had taken. She could not help but pause, hardly knowing why, when the gaunt figure of Mrs. Garth loomed large in the road beside her. Rotha would now have hastened home, but the woman had recognized her in the darkness.

"How's all at Shoulth'et?" said Mrs. Garth in her blandest tones; "rubbin' on as usual?"

Rotha answered with a civil commonplace, and turned to go. But Mrs.

Garth had stood, and the girl felt compelled to stand also.

"It's odd to see ye not at work, la.s.s," said the woman in a conciliatory way; "ye're nigh almost always as thrang as Thorp wife, t.i.ttyvating the house and what not."

Again some commonplace from Rotha, and another step homewards.

"I've just been takin' a sup o' tea with laal 'Becca Rudd. It's early to go home, but, as I says to my Joey, there's no place like it; and nowther is there. It's like ye've found that yersel', la.s.s, afore this."

There was an insinuating sneer in the tone in which Mrs. Garth uttered her last words. Getting no response, she added,--

"And yer fadder, I reckon _he's_ found it out too, bein' so lang beholden to others. I met the poor man on the road awhile ago."

"It's cold and sappy, Mrs. Garth. Good night," said Rotha.

"Poor man, he has to scrat now," said Mrs. Garth, regardless of Rotha's adieu. "I reckon he's none gone off for a spoag; he's none gone for a jaunt."

The woman was angry at Rotha's silence, and, failing to conciliate the girl, she was determined to hold her by other means. Rotha perceived the purpose, and wondered within herself why she did not go.

"But he's gone on a bootless errand, I tell ye," continued Mrs. Garth.

"What errand?" It was impossible to resist the impulse to probe the woman's meaning.

Mrs. Garth laughed. It was a cruel laugh, with a crow of triumph in it.

"Yer waxin' apace, la.s.s; I reckon ye think ye'll be amang the next batch of weddiners," said Mrs. Garth.

Rotha was not slow to see the connection of this scarcely relevant observation. Did the woman know on what errand her father had set out?

Had she guessed it? And if so, what matter?

"I wish the errand had been mine instead," said Rotha calmly. But it was an unlucky remark.

"Like enough. Now, that's very like," said Mrs. Garth with affected sincerity. "Ye'll want to see him badly, la.s.s; he's been lang away.

Weel, it's nought but nature. He's a very personable young man.

There's no sayin' aught against it. Yes, he's of the bettermer sort, that way."

Of what use was it to continue this idle gossip? Rotha was again turning about, when Mrs. Garth added, half as comment and half as question,--

"And likely ye've never had the scribe of a line from him sin' he left. But he's no wanter; he'll never marry ye, la.s.s, so ye need never set heart on him."

Rotha stepped close to the woman and looked into her face. What wickedness was now brewing?

"Nay, saucer een," said Mrs. Garth with a snirt, "art tryin' to skiander me like yon saucy baggish, laal Liza?"

"Come, Mrs. Garth, let us understand one another," said Rotha solemnly. "What is it you wish to tell me? You said my father had gone on a bootless errand. What do you know about it? Tell me, and don't torment me, woman."

"Nay, then, I've naught to say. Naught but that Ralph Ray is on the stormy side of the hedge _this_ time."